Wind energy provides many benefits:

Clean Electricity: Widespread wind development addresses climate change by providing a non-polluting source of energy that can displace greenhouse gas emissions from conventional power.

Energy Independence: Wind generation promotes national security by reducing our reliance on foreign and volatile sources of fossil fuels.

A New Crop: Wind farms can help “save the family farm” by allowing traditional land use revenues to be supplemented by new revenue streams afforded by land leasing agreements. Also, wind farms substantially broaden the tax base in rural communities.

Community-owned wind provides advantages above and beyond those of conventional wind:

Strengthens Rural Communities: Locally-owned wind generates new income sources for farmers, landowners, and communities. It also strengthens rural and often depressed communities in more subtle – yet important – ways by expanding local entrepreneurial ingenuity and fostering a sense of hope for the future.

Stimulates the Local and State Economy: Community-owned wind projects provide high quality jobs, creating and retaining wealth that can then be re-invested in the community to grow new business opportunities. By keeping energy dollars circulating within the community – instead of being exported to other nations or states – energy independence becomes institutionalized at the local level.

Strengthens Personal Responsibility: Wind turbines connect people to the source of their electricity, which characteristically inspires them to become more efficient and even more environmentally responsible.

Resources

Windustry has pulled together an extensive collection of resources and research articles about the benefits of wind and community wind. You'll find our favorites at the bottom of this page.

You can also search the whole collection through our resource library by following this link. Once you're at the resource library, select "Benefits of Wind" or "Benefits of Community Wind" from the list of topics.

A helpful resource for learning about and promoting wind energy is our series on Wind Basics: Why Wind Energy?