Produced by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and their National Wind Technology Center. (Note that this is older information.)

Click here to go to the atlas. 

This web page from the Wind Powering America program provides links to wind resource maps for nearly every state.

Assessing your wind resource is a critical piece of planning a wind project. Click on the link at the bottom of this page to view a presentation given by Wes Slaymaker for a Wisconsin Focus on Energy Seminar in February 2005.

CAUTION: This is a very large (4.5 MB) file and may be slow to download! 

Wind Energy Manual
2005: Iowa Energy Center.

A precise understanding of your wind resource is the cornerstone of any wind project. While some of the best resources are found on agricultural lands, the power in the wind varies greatly from one location to another.

The Energy & Environmental Research Center (EERC), with support from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the North Dakota Division of Community Services (DCS), developed the Plains Organization for Wind Energy Resources (POWER) to serve as a regional center of excellence for wind energy.

The Iowa Energy Center is a non-profit organization working to create a stable energy future for Iowa.

Their web site includes wind and solar resource maps for Iowa, as well as loan and tax incentive information. 

A term and calculation used to describe how wind speed increases with height above the surface of the earth. The degree of wind shear is a factor of the complexity of the terrain as well as the actual heights measured. Wind shear increases as friction between the wind and the ground becomes greater. Wind shear is not a measure of the wind speed at a site.

A way of quantifying on a scale the strength of the wind at a project site. The Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory defines the wind class at a site on a scale from 1 to 7 (1 being low and 7 being high) based on average wind speed and power density to offer guidance to potential developers as to where wind projects might be feasible.

A tower used at a potential project site which has equipment attached to it which is designed to assess wind resource. Generally a met tower will have anemometers, wind direction vanes, temperature and pressure sensors, and other measurement devices attached to it at various levels above the ground.