DOE Publishes 100-Meter Northeast Wind Resource Maps

June 29, 2020

The ability to assess and characterize available wind resources is critical to the development, siting, and operation of a wind plant. DOE’s WETO, which supports efforts to accurately define, measure, and forecast the nation's land-based and offshore wind resources, recently announced the first release in a series of new and improved regional wind resource maps. This release features the Northeast region of the United States; regions covering all 50 states will be added as they become available. These maps provide a comprehensive picture of the wind speed at 100 meters above surface level for policymakers, communities, and other stakeholders to better understand the wind resource potential in the Northeast. The availability of maps covering both land-based and offshore wind resources will enable better understanding of the wind power potential in their region.

The maps were developed by DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) using modeled wind resource estimates developed by NREL via the Wind Integration National Dataset (WIND) Toolkit and are intended for general educational purposes only. While these maps can provide a general indication of good or poor wind resources, they do not provide a resolution high enough to identify local site features such as complex terrain, ground cover, and data needed prior to siting a wind project.