The development pipeline is 34 percent higher than a year earlier, AWEA says. Source: NREL

The U.S. wind power industry completed 7,017 megawatts (MW) of new wind power capacity representing $11 billion in new private investment in 2017. Twenty-nine new wind farms totaling 4,125 MW came online across 16 states in the fourth quarter. The trends were reported by the American Wind Energy Association's (AWEA's) fourth quarter market report.

The pipeline of wind farms under construction or in advanced development totals 28,668 MW, a 34 percent increase compared to the end of 2016.

AWEA says there are now 89,077 MW of wind power installed across 41 states.

Oklahoma passed Iowa in the fourth quarter to rank second in the nation for total installed wind capacity. Texas remained the national leader for installed capacity and would be ranked sixth in the world if it were a country. Texas also led the quarter for new wind capacity, with 1,179 MW installed. That was followed by Oklahoma (851 MW), Iowa (334 MW), Illinois (306 MW) and Missouri (300 MW).

New long-term contracts signed for wind energy, known as power purchase agreements (PPAs), totaled 710 MW during the fourth quarter and 5,496 MW for the year, a higher PPA volume than any year since 2013, AWEA says. All of the new PPAs in the fourth quarter were signed by non-utility customers, including first-time buyer Bay Area Rapid Transit, as well as Google Energy, Facebook and Digital Realty.

Non-utility customers have become a large and steady source of demand for wind power, AWEA says. Even so, utilities continued to be the biggest overall customers, signing roughly 60 percent of the contracted wind capacity in 2017.

The U.S. wind industry completed 2,136 MW of partial repowerings across 15 project phases during 2017. Partial repowering activity is expected to accelerate in the near term, the industry trade group says.

In the fourth quarter, MHI Vestas invested $35 million in a testing facility at Clemson University in South Carolina for its 9.5 megawatt offshore turbine, one of the biggest in the world.