{"id":633480,"date":"2026-05-09T20:19:21","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T20:19:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/633480\/"},"modified":"2026-05-09T20:19:21","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T20:19:21","slug":"we-bet-you-cant-guess-which-states-rely-most-on-wind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/633480\/","title":{"rendered":"We bet you can\u2019t guess which states rely most on wind\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p dir=\"ltr\">If you said Iowa, South Dakota, and New Mexico, well done. If you had Texas or California in there, fair enough \u2014 but neither of those clean-energy behemoths made it onto the podium, per the <a href=\"https:\/\/cleanpower.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/ACP_2025_Annual_Market_Report_Public-1.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">latest report<\/a> from trade group American Clean Power Association.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Of the electricity produced in Iowa last year, 61% came from wind and solar \u2014 and pretty much all of that was wind. For decades, the state has been a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.canarymedia.com\/articles\/wind\/how-iowa-turned-against-wind\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">leader on wind energy<\/a>, though in recent years, development of new projects has dried up because of mounting local opposition and the Trump administration\u2019s broader attacks on renewable energy.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">South Dakota is a\u00a0similar story, at 59%. Consistently gusty weather and ample land have led the state to install lots of wind turbines, and solar is scant in comparison.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">New Mexico, which got about half its electricity from wind and solar in 2025, is a\u00a0bit more balanced. Wind accounted for 36% of its power, and solar for 17%. The state is also a\u00a0leader in grid batteries, which it is building out quickly to save more renewable energy for periods when the sun isn\u2019t shining and the wind isn\u2019t blowing.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The leaderboard could soon change as some states charge toward ambitious 2030 clean energy targets. California, for one, saw a\u00a0massive leap in renewable energy production last year, with solar and wind accounting for 44% of its generation. The year before, that figure was\u00a038%.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">In total, 13 states generated more than 30% of their electricity from wind and solar last year, and the clean energy sources provided 17% of the nation\u2019s grid-scale electricity overall \u2014 a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.eia.gov\/todayinenergy\/detail.php?id=67367\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">new record<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The reason for the sector\u2019s ascent is simple. As electricity demand and utility bills spike, solar and wind \u2014 along with batteries \u2014 are cheap and fast ways to get more power flowing. The same cannot be said for coal plants (which are expensive to run) or natural gas facilities (which take a\u00a0long time to build because of an equipment supply crunch).<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">These facts add up to one outcome: Solar and wind will keep rising to new heights in states across the nation.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you said Iowa, South Dakota, and New Mexico, well done. If you had Texas or California in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":633481,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[192,79],"class_list":["post-633480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=633480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633480\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/633481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=633480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=633480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=633480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}