After a deep slump at the end of last year, the wind industry is picking up.

First Wind, a Boston-based developer and operator that was sitting on a pile of stalled projects with the potential to power roughly 300,000 homes, now expects to go forward with many of them.

Broadwind, an energy manufacturing and services company, based in Cicero, Ill., recently announced winning two new orders for wind towers worth $62 million. At least nine utilities, including Xcel Energy and a subsidiary of American Electric Power, are exploring new wind projects.

“Deals are getting signed; people are ramping up their production facilities again,” said Peter C. Duprey, chief executive of Broadwind. “The whole industry went through either a shutdown or idling at the end of last year and are now quickly trying to gear back up again.”

The rush to development is in large part because of Congress. Lawmakers had allowed a popular incentive, known as the production tax credit, to lapse at the end of last year, but then renewed it in January. They also changed the requirement so that projects only have to be under construction by the end of the year to qualify, rather than fully operational, as had traditionally been the case.