Lots of Wind, Far Too Little Sun: South Dakota 18th for Green Power Production in 2022

Governingpresents data from the Energy Information Administration showing how much wind and solar energy each state generated in 2022. South Dakota is one of thirteen states that cranked out more than 10,000 gigawatt-hours of electricity from wind power last year.

For perspective, 1.21 gigawatts can power one time-DeLorean. One gigawatt-hour would power about 100 American households for a year. South Dakota’s 10,325 GWh of wind electricity could thus power about a million households, just about three times the number of households in South Dakota. We could help out Minnesota: they generated 14,273 GWh of wind power last year, enough to power about 1.4 million of their 2.2 million households.

While Minnesota is generating 1.4 times as much wind power as South Dakota, Minnesota is generating 575 times as much solar power as South Dakota. Minnesota produced 2,298 GWh of electricity with solar panels last year. South Dakota made just 4 GWh of solar power. North Dakota produced only 2 GWh of solar power, but every other state beat us. Even Alaska managed to generate 18 GWh of solar power.

Add wind and solar and South Dakota ranks 18th overall for production of these two major forms of green power. Texas ranks first and is the only state generating over 100,000 gigawatt-hours (139,243, to be more exact)of green power. California is a wayback second at 76,021 green GWh. Iowa is our most greenly powerful neighbor, ranking third with 45,366 GWh. North Dakota, Minnesota, and Nebraska all out-green us as well, ranking 9th, 10th, and 12th, respectively. Wyoming ranks 21st; Montana ranks 31st.

State	GWh – solar	GWh – wind	GWh – total
Texas	25,363	113,880	139,243
California	60,331	15,690	76,021
Iowa	702	44,664	45,366
Oklahoma	167	37,418	37,585
Kansas	154	29,469	29,623
Illinois	2,823	23,063	25,886
Colorado	3,780	16,706	20,486
New Mexico	2,544	14,480	17,024
North Dakota	2	16,571	16,573
Minnesota	2,298	14,273	16,571
Florida	14,030	0	14,030
Nebraska	122	12,555	12,677
North Carolina	12,078	537	12,615
Arizona	10,019	1,564	11,583
Indiana	1,442	9,766	11,208
Oregon	2,019	9,120	11,139
Nevada	10,095	316	10,411
South Dakota	4	10,325	10,329
New York	5,470	4,786	10,256
Michigan	1,139	9,110	10,249
Wyoming	209	10,020	10,229
Washington	487	9,148	9,635
Missouri	690	7,467	8,157
Georgia	7,372	0	7,372
Utah	4,616	726	5,342
Virginia	5,079	51	5,130
Massachusetts	4,679	220	4,899
Pennsylvania	1,015	3,768	4,783
New Jersey	4,627	22	4,649
Ohio	1,262	3,152	4,414
Montana	85	4,034	4,119
Idaho	715	2,886	3,601
Maine	843	2,741	3,584
Wisconsin	1,053	1,801	2,854
South Carolina	2,832	0	2,832
Hawaii	1,833	634	2,467
Maryland	1,863	498	2,361
West Virginia	33	2,045	2,078
Connecticut	1,398	13	1,411
Rhode Island	945	222	1,167
Arkansas	954	0	954
Alabama	918	0	918
Vermont	415	409	824
Tennessee	775	31	806
New Hampshire	239	482	721
Mississippi	530	0	530
Louisiana	466	0	466
Delaware	214	4	218
District of Columbia	203	0	203
Alaska	18	144	162
Kentucky	157	0	157
Data from EIA, in Smith, 2023.03.17

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