While Northeast and West Coast states led a recent clean energy ranking of U.S. states, recent advances helped push Minnesota into the top ten.
Minnesota ranked 9th in Clean Edges eighth annual U.S. Clean Tech Leadership Index, the only Midwest state in the top ten. Illinois and Michigan ranked 11th and 13th respectively, while the remaining Midwest states were in the bottom half of the rankings.
Like every region, the states in the Midwest have their strengths and weaknesses, said Andrew Rector, market analyst for Clean Edge.
Michigan has a good record of venture capital patents, a legacy of having Detroit and its expertise in patent law, while Illinois is a national leader in green buildings and has a strong venture capital market, Rector said.
Wisconsin (which ranked 29th) has a thriving biomass generation sector and more natural gas vehicles than average, he said. Ohio (28th) doesnt have much wind or solar now, Rector said, but that could change with a new wind farm being developed by Amazon and the reinstatement of its renewable portfolio standard.
The RPS signals that Ohio is committed to more investments in clean energy, and thats reflected in its five-spot jump in the Indexs Policy category rankings, he said.
Last year wind and solar represented 61 percent of all new generation capacity in the country, Clean Edge reported.
Three Midwest states Iowa (26th overall), Kansas (45th) and South Dakota (40th) receive more than 30 percent of their electricity from wind power.
States receiving more than 20 percent from renewable energy include North Dakota (50th) and Oklahoma, from wind, and California, from a mix of generation.
While the Midwest states which have strong wind power led the country in that category they did not score all that well in other areas to be national leaders.
