US onshore wind industry struggling despite government push for clean energy, analyst says

By Georgina McCartney

HOUSTON, Nov 13 (Reuters) - Onshore wind industry investment is struggling despite the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act, Geoffrey Hebertson, lead renewables analyst at Rystad Energy, told attendees at an energy conference hosted by the Federal Reserve Banks of Dallas and Kansas City on Wednesday.

Despite the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 which enabled production tax credits and investment tax credits for the next 10 years, the onshore wind industry is struggling to maintain investment levels, Hebertson said.

"We do expect 2024 to be a historically low year for wind and we do not see over the next few years any implications going forward for that to change," he added.

Current installed wind generation capacity in the U.S. is roughly 152 gigawatts (GW), according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Shortages of parts, jumps in labor costs and drawn-out development timelines have slowed the pace of wind-farm construction in the last couple of years.

A 300 megawatt wind farm used to cost around $400 million, but that same wind farm today would cost between $600 million and $670 million, Erik Haug, vice president of energy marketing at Apex Clean Energy, said at the same conference in Dallas. (Reporting by Georgina McCartney in Houston Editing by Matthew Lewis)