Economic and environmental factors of wind energy deployment in the United States

Abstract

Among the most promising clean energy sources in the electricity market, wind energy has substantially increased its share in the global energy portfolio. Since 2000, the installed wind energy generation capacity in the United States has been multiplied by 50, from 2,377 megawatts to 117,744 megawatts in 2020. We investigate the economic and environmental factors that have relationships with the wind energy generation capacity growth in the United States between 2000 and 2020 using fixed-effects panel data analysis. Economic factors include gross state product, the value of the agricultural sector, and the unemployment rate. Environmental factors include carbon dioxide emissions, nitrogen oxide emissions, and water use. The empirical findings provide strong evidence that in the United States, an increase in economic factors (except unemployment) is related to a significant increase in the installed wind energy capacity. In contrast, the relationship between the air emissions and installed wind capacity is negative. The results for water use are not reported in the current study as these data did not satisfy all fixed-effects panel data analysis assumptions. These findings are expected to contribute to understanding how states might best stimulate and support wind energy deployment.