A report issued this week by the American Wind Energy Association shows their strongest first quarter for wind power in eight years. John Hensley, Manager of Industry Data and Analysis for AWEA says there were over 900 utility scale wind turbines installed across the country totaling 2,000 megawatts of power.

He says that wind production is also stronger than the first three quarters of 2016 combined. Hensley says what led to this strength in the industry is that wind power is the least costly option for utilities.

Hensley says the wind industry already provides hundreds of thousands of jobs and that is expected to grow even more in the next four years.

Hensley says the wind production tax credit that was renewed in 2015 has helped this growth. The industry is now in the third year of the five year phase down of that incentive.