Ranch land has been leased. Roads are being laid under the shadows of seabirds. And the $4 million wind turbines are on order.

Wind developers from around the globe have rushed into the Texas Panhandle and Gulf Coast at a pace not seen since the industry’s early days in the mid-2000s.

More than 7,000 megawatts of new wind turbines are scheduled to be built by the end of next year, potentially increasing Texas’ wind power capacity by almost 60 percent. Whether developers will be able to carry through as advertised remains to be seen. But the volume of projects underway represents a dramatic acceleration for a Texas wind industry that has seen relatively modest growth since 2010.

“To put it in perspective, 7,000 megawatts is more than any other state has installed right now,” said Emily Williams, senior policy analyst for the American Wind Energy Association.

What has some skeptical is that many of the projects began construction in a frenzy late last year in an attempt to take advantage of the now-expired tax credit for wind farms. If you began construction before Dec. 31 — under IRS rules, that could mean ordering wind turbines or laying a foundation — then you qualify for a tax credit that could be worth $5 million a year for a 200-megawatt wind farm.

But some of those projects have not yet obtained contracts to sell their power. And there is a finite amount of capital to go round, said Pattern Energy CEO Mike Garland, whose California company has two wind projects under development in the Panhandle.

“It’s a case of people saying, ‘I’m willing to do a contract now because I think the [tax credit] is going to run out.’ We see this every few years,” he said. “You’re going to see a lot of those projects not come to completion.”