When completed in 2026, the SunZia wind farm will become the largest project of its kind in the Western Hemisphere, capable of producing 3.5 gigawatts. Located in New Mexico, SunZia marks a major milestone for the United States in the world of renewable energy, with peak capacity capable of powering approximately one million homes per year. The majority of the turbines – 674 out of 916 to be exact – were supplied by GE Vernova. Headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, GE Vernova is a leading manufacturer of wind turbines in the United States, accounting for 56% of that market in 2024, and by 2025, GE Vernova and its Danish rival Vestas accounted for 93% of U.S. onshore wind installations.
Additionally, GE Vernova alone is responsible for approximately 59,000 wind turbine installations worldwide, including 35,000 in the United States, allowing the company to boast that its technology helps generate nearly a quarter of the world’s electricity. GE Vernova may be the biggest name in this field, but there are a handful of other turbine manufacturers contributing to the world’s renewable energy supply, and they’re all making waves.
GE Vernova may dominate, but it’s not the only one making major milestones
While GE Vernova may dominate the U.S. offering, rivals such as Vestas, Siemens Gamesa and Goldwind are all making international moves. In 2025, Vestas was the first manufacturer to cross the threshold of 200 gigawatts supplied cumulatively, not GE Vernova. In fact, two of the five companies have a higher cumulative supply alongside Vestas, including Goldwind with 163 gigawatts and Siemens Gamesa with 148 gigawatts. GE Vernova came in fourth with 125 gigawatts. Additionally, these names represent four of the five companies that have crossed the milestone of 100 gigawatts of installed renewable wind energy, which represents “enough electricity to power many of the world’s largest economies.”
Globally, renewable wind energy meets approximately 9.5% of electricity demand, with a record 178 gigawatts of wind power coming online in 2025, a 40% increase from previous years. Uptrend or not, none of these companies have anything on China’s new flying wind turbine, designed to float in the air, like a balloon, and help unleash power that conventional options could never achieve.
Are wind turbines really viable sources of energy?
As the global demand for energy increases for several reasons and nuclear energy provides a viable alternative to conventional energy, the question arises: how many wind turbines are equivalent to a single nuclear reactor? The short answer is that it would take a farm with about 800 turbines – each producing about 3 megawatts – to equal a single nuclear reactor.
Many more wind turbines and much more space are needed to match the capacity of nuclear power, but wind turbines are more recyclable when they reach the end of their life. Wind turbines last about 20 to 30 years, compared to nuclear reactors, which have a tentative lifespan of about 40 years, but as of today, about 94 percent of the parts of a wind turbine can be recycled, including the foundation, tower, gearbox, generator and, more recently, the rotor blades.
However, when you compare wind and solar power, wind power is technically more efficient and more readily available, believe it or not. Even a slight breeze can generate energy with the right wind installation.
