Wind powers more than half the electricity in 3 states
A wind turbine turns moving air into electricity through a rotor connected to a generator. In 3 states, wind now supplies more than half of everything the state generates. Iowa generated 63% of its electricity from wind in 2024, the largest share of any state, according to the Iowa Economic Development Authority. Wind grew from 42% of Iowa electricity in 2019 to 63% in 2024, while coal fell from 35% to 21% over the same 5 years. South Dakota reported 57.16% from wind in 2025, in preliminary data from the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission. Kansas reported 51.67% in 2024, according to the Kansas Corporation Commission, the state utility regulator.
Iowa and Kansas are full year 2024 figures, sources 1 and 2. South Dakota is preliminary 2025 data, source 3, because no full year 2024 figure for South Dakota was read this session.
Show the numbers
| Iowa | 63 |
| Kansas | 51.67 |
| South Dakota | 57.16 |
What Kansas burns instead
The Kansas Corporation Commission publishes the full mix behind that 51.67% figure. In 2024, coal supplied 22.67% of Kansas electricity, nuclear supplied 15.95%, natural gas supplied 9.22%, and all other sources together supplied 0.52%. Wind was already the single largest source in the state before any of those other fuels are counted. A megawatt hour is the unit that lets power plants of any size be compared on the same scale. Measured in that unit, wind generated 29,795,187 megawatt hours in Kansas in 2024, more than twice the 13,079,183 megawatt hours coal generated the same year.
All 5 figures are read directly from the regulator own chart for 2024 and add up to the full total the state generated that year.
Show the numbers
| Wind | 51.67 |
| Coal | 22.67 |
| Nuclear | 15.95 |
| Natural gas | 9.22 |
| Other | 0.52 |
A rancher whose best crop is wind
Pete Ferrell runs a 7,000 acre tallgrass prairie ranch in Beaumont, Kansas, land his family has worked since 1923. Fifty turbines now stand on that ranch, half of the Elk River wind project, which started generating in 2005 and produces enough electricity for about 60,000 homes. About half of the money Ferrell earns each year has come from wind royalties since the turbines went up. A landowner who leases ground to a wind developer can earn upwards of 10,000 dollars a year for a single 2.5 megawatt turbine. That turbine occupies less than 1 acre, so the rest of the land stays in use for grazing or crops.
You know what is my best cash crop. It blows even during a drought.
Pete Ferrell, rancher who hosts 50 turbines on his family land in Beaumont, Kansas. Source 4.
How these 3 states fit the national map
Wind supplied about 10% of all utility scale electricity generated in the United States in 2025, about 464 billion kilowatt hours, spread across 43 states, according to the Energy Information Administration. Measured by total wind electricity produced, rather than by the share of electricity each state generates from wind, the 5 largest wind producing states in 2025 were Texas, Iowa, Oklahoma, Kansas and Illinois, together generating about 52% of all the wind electricity made in the country. Iowa and Kansas appear on both lists, the states that lean most on wind and the states that produce the most of it.