The amount of electricity produced by wind power in the US plummetted to a 33-month low on Monday (22 July), with natural gas-fired power plants having to increase production to make up for the shortfall and keep air conditioners running.

According to preliminary data from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) seen by Reuters, wind farms in the lower 48 states produced around 335,753 megawatt-hours on Monday, the lowest level since 4 October 2021.

To replace the shortfall from the wind power slump, gas-fired power plants increased their share of power generation from 46% last week to 48% this week. Overall, in 2024, gas-fired power has made up 40% of production, down from 41% in 2023.

Wind farms are expected to produce an average of just 4% of power generation this week, down from 7% last week, 12% so far in 2024 and 10% in 2023.

The US has been pumping vast amounts of money into wind power, with Power Technology’s parent company, GlobalData, forecasting the market to achieve a compound annual growth rate of more than 6% between 2022 and 2035. However, due to the intermittent nature of wind power production, back up gas-fired production is needed to ensure that supply meets demand, at least in the near future.

In 2023, US electricity generation from wind farms decreased for the first time since the mid-1990s, despite 6.2GW of wind capacity being installed in the past year. The EIA's Power Plant Operations Report showed that US wind generation in 2023 totalled 425,235 gigawatt-hours (GWh), 2.1% less than the 434,297GWh in 2022.

The US has more than tripled its wind capacity in recent years from 47GW in 2010 to 147.5GW by the end of 2023, with electricity from wind growing as a result. However, the utilisation rate of wind turbines fell to an eight-year low of 33.5% in 2023.