U.S. wind power isn’t spreading out evenly. It’s piling up in a handful of states with the best wind resource and the land to build on it.

Texas, Oklahoma, Iowa, Kansas & Illinois: 54% of all U.S. wind capacity

National wind capacity grew 72% since 2019, but not evenly. Texas’s own lead isn’t wind resource alone — it’s a specific bet: the $7B CREZ transmission project (2005–2014) built nearly 3,600 miles of new lines to move West Texas wind to market, cutting curtailment from 17% to 1.2%. Good wind without the wires to move it is stranded power.

Source: EIA Form EIA-860M (Onshore Wind Turbine, Operating status), Jan. 2019 vs. June 2026. CREZ figures via Utility Dive and Texas Tribune, 2013. Map base: Lokal_Profil, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.5).