The US demand for wind-turbine systems is predicted to reach $18.9 billion in 2018, a nine-fold increase on 2013, according to a report from the Freedonia Group — a Cleveland-based market-research organisation.

Analyst Kyle Peters said that, with the exception of a single small-scale prototype turbine put out to float off the coast of Maine in June 2013, all of the wind-turbine systems installed in the USA last year were for onshore applications.

This is expected to change, Mr Peters said, as a number of projects are progressing towards the installation stage. These include: Cape Wind, off the coast of Massachusetts; Project WindFloat, off the coast of Oregon; and Project Icebreaker, in Lake Erie near Cleveland, Ohio.