Mapping the evolution of Canada’s wind energy fleet

Abstract

This paper describes the development of a data set mapping all commercial wind turbines in Canada: the 9th largest onshore wind energy fleet in the world. Details contained in the data enable the analysis of the evolution of commercially deployed wind turbines as well as the illustrating the effects of the introduction and cessation of different policies affected historical deployment. In total, over 6700 turbines spanning more than 265 projects and nearly 14.0 GW of generating capacity were indexed including coordinates, model, manufacturer, owner, tower height and commissioning date. Data were compiled from publicly available sources including planning documents, technical reports, environmental impact studies and acoustic emission reports. In 2021, average rotor diameters were 140 m with 108 m tall towers, more than triple the average diameter and double the average tower height from 20 years ago. The analysis of this data found that a typical wind farm in Canada consists of 0.97 turbines/km2, while the typical installed capacity density has recently jumped from around 1 to 2.94 MW/km2 in 2021. Competitive procurement policies have often trended towards larger installed capacities, whereas smaller wind farms emerged more often when policies directed at community ownership were in place. Policies that encouraged local manufacturing developed regional clusters of particular manufacturers, but generally ceased after the local manufacturing policies ended. This work serves as a benchmark for the evolution of wind energy in Canada and a framework for similar data sets in other jurisdictions, and provides a resource for academic researchers, wind farm developers, government bodies and planning agencies as well as the general public.