USA: Fact Check - AWEA represents American wind power

Here are some facts about the made-in-the-USA bonafides of the wind industry:

73,000 American wind power workers are making projects serve American consumers and American communities. That includes nearly 20,000 manufacturing jobs at over 500 factories across 43 states making wind turbines mostly for U.S. wind farms but some for export.

Domestic content of wind farms has risen to with more than 60 percent of the value of wind farms built here in the U.S. through in-sourcing. (“In-sourcing” of hundreds of billions of dollars of investments from abroad is the opposite of the outsourcing phenomenon and that insourcing of wind energy investments has been very good for the U.S. economy and U.S. workers.)

All of the companies represented on AWEA’s Board are American companies or have U.S. subsidiaries. Some ideological media outlets have recently tried once again to make hay of the fact that, like any global industry, some of those companies have parent companies that are active in other countries. That distinction is irrelevant as all companies on AWEA’s Board have major offices in America, employ large numbers of Americans, and are making large investments in America.

These ideological media outlets have also gotten some of the facts wrong. Contrary to the initial reporting of a Daily Caller story we continue to publicly provide our Board of Directors. The only change that has been made from a page archived from 2013 that was circulated is that we no longer have a Leadership Council. The Daily Caller stated in an update that we “did not explain why they got rid or their Leadership Council or what influence they held over the group,” but they did not ask us for this information. We have a lot of committees that come and go, but the role of our Board of Directors has been written into our bylaws since 1974.

This industry was invented in America and is still led by American companies. The biggest manufacturer of U.S. wind turbines is GE, a U.S. company. The biggest developer is NextEra, a U.S. company. Big U.S. utilities such as Xcel and MidAmerican Energy are also developing and/or buying wind energy, and well-known U.S. companies such as Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Dow are buying wind energy.

AWEA is proud to work every day to bring more wind power to the U.S. for the benefit of American workers and consumers.