Assessing the World's Wind Resources

Abstract

Summary form only given. A major barrier to the deployment of wind energy in many regions of the world is a lack of reliable and detailed wind resource data. Availability of these data is essential for government and industry to identify wind power generation potential and to act on that knowledge. To overcome this barrier, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and other organizations have, over the last 5 years, developed new methods to more accurately assess the wind resource and produce detailed high-resolution (1-km) wind maps for essentially anywhere in the world. The NREL methodology for creating large-area wind resource maps is an integration of global terrain and climatic data sets, geographical information systems (GIS) technology, and analytical and computational techniques. Through the application of its wind mapping system, NREL has performed wind resource assessments and generated high-resolution wind maps for various areas of the world, including the entire countries of Philippines, Mongolia, and the Dominican Republic and specific areas of the United States, Mexico, Chile, Indonesia, China, and Russia. The detailed wind maps and other resource data have facilitated the rapid identification of good wind resource areas and led to more successful prospecting and measurement efforts. This new wind resource information has accelerated the use of wind energy technologies-both for utility-scale generation and small wind energy applications. The United Nations Environment Programme is supporting a new initiative in cooperation with NREL to expand the wind resource mapping to many other countries and regions of the world, particularly developing countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. This new initiative, which will specifically target countries that have shown interest in wind energy use but lack sufficient knowledge of their wind resources, is another significant step toward harnessing untapped wind power around the world.