Experience with SWTs in the United States provides an interesting perspective in terms of potential Canadian measures to promote SWTs. The U.S. has made progress in establishing a foundation for its domestic SWT market, and the country’s R&D investments have helped to establish a number of stable turbine manufacturers with a reasonably consistent market. In 2001, U.S. manufacturers produced an estimated 13,400 small wind turbines under 100 kW, with roughly half of these exported to other countries. These manufacturers tend to focus on SWTs under 10 kW, with strong sales for residential and battery-charging applications.

Experience in the U.S. indicates that SWTs are most successful where there are complementary elements including enabling policies (e.g. net metering, interconnection), market incentives (capital rebates or tax breaks), technology development (R&D, testing), and education and awareness-raising (published wind maps, guides for dealing with local bylaws, etc.). As an example, California provides substantial rebates for SWTs, sales tax incentives, “pro-SWT” net metering policies (allowing for systems up to 1 MW) as well as aggressive public awareness campaigns. In the past few years, the state’s SWT promotion program has assisted directly in the installation of almost 300 SWTs with a total capacity of 1.6 MW, and a total installed cost of $US 8 million.

Looking to the future, the U.S. small wind industry estimates that by 2020, the U.S. SWT industry could supply 50,000 MW, employ 10,000 people and be greater than a $1 billion per year industry.