GE Vernova corners US wind installations in Q1 2024 — American Clean Power Association

A year ago, the US-based company’s wind turbines accounted for 74% of land-based installations in its domestic market, said ACP.

The amount of capacity installed in the first quarter of 2024 was modest. Developers commissioned two land-based wind project phases, adding 449MW of new wind power to the grid.

GE’s workhorse 2.82-127 turbines were the most popular in Q1 2024, making up 89% of onshore turbines brought online in the first quarter. GE’s 2.52-116 and 2.3-107 turbines made up the remainder. 

GE’s 2.82-127 model comprised 41% of capacity installed a year earlier.

Overall a combined 5.6GW of new wind and solar capacity was installed in the first quarter of 2024, marking an increase of 28% compared with installations in the same period a year ago.

As of the end of the quarter, onshore wind accounted for 151.1GW of operating clean power capacity, and offshore wind accounted for 174MW. Solar was at 100.5GW by the end of March.

The nameplate capacities for wind turbines in the pipeline ranged from 2.2MW to 6.1MW with turbines rated 3-4MW being the most popular, making up 4,085MW and 39% of capacity in the pipeline.

Turbines rated 4-5MW were a close second in popularity with 4,053MW, accounting for 38% within the pipeline. Turbines rated 2-3MW followed in third with 1,262MW (12%) then turbines rated 6-7MW were fourth with 1,060MW (10%).

Finally, turbines rated 5-6MW only accounted for 76MW of the pipeline capacity.

As of the end of Q1 2024, the land-based wind pipeline totalled 25.3GW, up more than 5GW over the 20.2GW observed in Q1 2023.  Year on year, onshore wind under construction increased by 3.7GW, while the volume that met ACP’s definition of advanced development increased by 1.3GW. 

The US offshore wind sector has experienced some turbulence in development schedules over the last year, but the pipeline still grew by 5.4GW from Q1 2023 to 22.9GW in Q1 2024. The completion of 132MW South Fork Wind meant the amount of wind power under construction fell slightly. However, the volume of offshore wind projects now in advanced development rose by 34%. South Fork features Siemens Gamesa’s SG 11.0-200 DD turbines.