US Wind Farms Generating the Most Electricity

As of 2020, Iowa had the highest wind generation capacity of any state but Texas, at nearly 11,000 MW. The state gets most of its energy from wind. The Highland Wind Energy Center, with its 218 turbines in the windy northwest corner of Iowa came online in 2015 as the largest wind farm in Iowa. It is also notable for the fact that it was the largest wind farm in the world to be completed in a single phase.

The Spinning Spur Wind Farm is an immense facility of 254 turbines spread over 70,000 acres in the northwest corner of the Texas panhandle. As large as it is, Spinning Spur is only the ninth largest wind energy facility in the state.

The boom in Texas wind energy began in 2008, just as the Buffalo Gap Wind Farm completed its third phase, with 296 turbines, challenging the capacity of the State’s transmission lines. With a surplus of power and flagging prices, the state began a $4.9 billion project to increase transmission capacity by 18,000 MW, the largest investment in renewable energy in U.S. history.

Cedar Creek wind farm was built between 2007 and 2010 in the northeast corner of Colorado near the Wyoming and Nebraska borders and primarily serves Denver and a few rural areas. The power generated from its 397 turbines is sold to the Public Service Company of Colorado, a 140-year-old utility company that won the first contract for lighting the streets of Denver in 1885.

With its second phase completed in 2012, the Flat Ridge Wind Farm, located near the Oklahoma border, became the largest wind generation facility in Kansas. It has since been surpassed by Cimarron Bend Wind Farm, with a capacity that was expanded to 599 MW in 2020.