Wind power jobs at record level in Iowa

The nation's wind-generated energy industry employed a record 88,000 people at the start of 2016, up 20 percent from the beginning of 2015, according to a new report.

The job growth in 2015 is primarily attributable to more wind project development and construction, requiring more than 38,000 employees, according to the American Wind Energy Association's annual market report.

'With long-term, stable policy in place, and a broader range of customers buying low-cost wind-generated electricity, our workforce can grow to 380,000 well-paying jobs by 2030,” said Tom Kiernan, CEO of AWEA, in a news release.

Late last year, Congress passed a long-term extension of the wind energy production tax credit and alternative investment tax credit with bipartisan support. With the extension in place, Kiernan believes wind energy is on track to meet the U.S. Department of Energy's goal of supplying 20 percent of U.S. electricity by 2030.

Iowa leads all states in the amount of electricity generated by wind turbines - 31.3 percent. The wind energy generation industry employs about 6,000 Iowans with plants producing wind turbines, blades and towers and technicians trained at two community colleges maintaining wind turbines.

MidAmerican Energy in late 2015 and early 2016 completed two major wind energy installations in Iowa, adding more than 1,200 megawatts of electric generation.

The Highland wind farm in O'Brien County, which began providing electricity on Dec. 3, 2015, is the fifth and final piece of MidAmerican Energy's Wind VIII project - the Des Moines utility's largest wind energy project to date.

MidAmerican completed its Wind IX project on Jan. 30 when the Adams wind farm in Adams County began providing electricity.

The two projects brought MidAmerican's total generation from the renewable energy source to almost 3,500 megawatts, an amount that represents about 42 percent of the company's installed generation capacity.

Iowa has attracted more than $11.8 billion of investment in wind energy over the last decade. according to AWEA data.