Energy and Power Engineering, 2020, 12, 407-431 https://www.scirp.org/journal/epe ISSN Online: 1947-3818 ISSN Print: 1949-243X DOI: 10.4236/epe.2020.127025 Jul. 27, 2020 407 Energy and Power Engineering Using the United States Wind Turbine Database to Identify Increasing Turbine Size, Capacity and Other Development Trends Chad Walker Department of Geography, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK Abstract The purpose of this article was to analyze data associated with advances in wind energy across the United States. While governments, academia, and the private sector generally know patterns of wind turbine development (i.e. tur- bine size and capacity growing in recent years), there is no known independ- ent, reliable, and/or updated summary of these variables. Using data collected by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and partners, this study used descriptive statistics to show turbine development and growth patterns from 1981-2019. The newly created United States Wind Turbine Database (USWTDB) represents the most comprehensive account of wind turbine information and was updated in January 2020. Variables I am interested in here are turbine manufacturer, state of project, turbine and project capacity, and turbine size. Findings provide empirical evidence to support the common, yet previously unrefined statements that wind turbines are growing larger in number, size and capacity. This growth is varied over spatial and temporal scales. I also provide evidence to show patterns of turbine manufacturing, with GE Wind dominating much of the US wind energy landscape today. I hope this work provides a timely resource for those interested in a variety of questions sur- rounding wind energy development in the United States. Perhaps more im- portantly, this analysis will hopefully inspire others to use what the USWTDB provides and answer larger questions surrounding wind energy futures. Keywords Wind Energy, Wind Turbines, USWTDB, Renewable Energy, Turbine Capacity, Turbine Size 1. Introduction Responding to intersecting problems including global climate change, air pollu- How to cite this paper: Walker, C. (2020) Using the United States Wind Turbine Da- tabase to Identify Increasing Turbine Size, Capacity and Other Development Trends. Energy and Power Engineering, 12, 407-431. https://doi.org/10.4236/epe.2020.127025 Received: June 2, 2020 Accepted: July 24, 2020 Published: July 27, 2020 Copyright © 2020 by author(s) and Scientific Research Publishing Inc. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY 4.0). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Open Access