U.S. wind energy group says congressional support for renewables translates to an opportunity for the industry's revival. File photo by Stephen Shaver/UPI | License Photo

WASHINGTON, Dec. 21 (UPI) -- Congressional moves to keep the U.S. government funding through the middle of 2016 translate to a vote of confidence for wind energy, an industry group said.

U.S. lawmakers last week passed a series of spending measures including an extension to subsidies for renewable energy programs. The American Wind Energy Association said the wind energy sector boomed in 2012 as developers raced to take advantage of tax incentives. Policy uncertainty the following year, however, caused a 92 percent reduction in wind energy installations.


Recent renewable energy support from Washington followed pledges made at a U.N. climate summit in Paris by nearly 200 world powers to take the steps necessary to help thwart global warming.

"This American wind power success story just gets better," American Wind Energy Association Tom Kiernan said in a statement. "Wind energy is the biggest, fastest and cheapest way we can cut carbon pollution here in the United States."

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Federal data show renewable energy accounted for 11 percent of total U.S. power generation last year. Oil, natural gas and coal combined for about 80 percent of total U.S. power in 2014. Nevertheless, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reports production from wind and solar sources reached record highs last year.

The U.S. Department of Energy in November published a 24-page document highlighting trends in the renewable power sector. Wind energy, the report said, is becoming a "mainstream power source," accounting for 31 percent of all new electricity capacity added to the U.S. grid between 2008 and last year.

The AWEA said wind power in the United States expanded more than 6 percent in 2015 alone.

"Previous short-term extensions of the wind tax incentives helped spur a near-record of more than 13,250 megawatts of wind capacity currently under construction in the U.S., with an additional 4,100 MW in advanced stages of development," the organization said. "This year's multi-year extension is expected to add to that number."

The next frontier for the United States is offshore wind power. What will be the first commercial offshore wind farm in the United States, the Block Island wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island, should be generating power by late 2016. A combined 307,590 acres may be considered for offshore wind energy development in the next phase of deployment off the coast of North Carolina.