Wind Resource Assessments

Chapter 4: Wind Resource Assessment

Wind resource assessment is the most important step in planning a community wind project because it is the basis for determining initial feasibility and cash flow projections, and is ultimately vital for acquiring financing. Your project will progress through several stages of assessment:

Scale: 
Commercial Scale
Topic: 
Community Wind - Resources
Wind Resource Assessments
Windustry Publication
Ownership: 
Community Owned

Assessing Wind Resources: A Guide for Landowners, Project Developers, and Power Suppliers

This report from the Union of Concerned Scientists was originally published in the Harvest the Wind Handbook from Windustry. According to the UCS web site, "This report is intended to guide prospective wind farm developers through the process of site assessment. It provides practical information on how to develop reliable estimates of the wind resource and electricity production at a given site. This includes information on how to measure wind speeds and direction; how to qualify your land’s potential for wind projects; how certain variables affect wind production costs and return on investment; what information is typically needed by banks and investors to finance a project; and where to look for additional information. While our examples are based on Minnesota, the principles discussed can be applied to any state, particularly other parts of the Midwest."

Click here to read the report.

Wind Prospecting

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! 

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