Electricity production from wind turbines erected in the US has fallen for the first time in 25 years due to weaker breezes in the Midwest, highlighting the challenges of integrating volatile renewable energy sources into the grid.

Bloomberg News, citing a government report released on Tuesday, reports that electricity generated by wind turbines fell by 2% in 2023, even after wind farm developers added 6.2 GW of new capacity to the grid.

The capacity factor of the nation’s wind farms - how much energy it actually generates compared to its maximum possible output - fell to an eight-year low of 33.5%. Most of this decline was driven by the central US, a region densely packed with turbines.

Last year’s low wind speeds came during El Niño, a warming of the equatorial Pacific Ocean that tends to weaken trade winds.

La Niña, the Pacific cooling pattern that dominated in 2022 and is set to return later this year, usually has the opposite effect.

(Translated using DeepL with additional editing by Catherine Brett)