Released to the public as part of the Department of Energy's Open Energy Data Initiative, the Wind Integration National Dataset (WIND) is an update and expansion of the Eastern Wind Integration Data Set and Western Wind Integration Data Set. It supports the next generation of wind integration studies.

This data provides modeled annual average wind speed for the contiguous United States both onshore and offshore for the period 2007–2013. This dataset was derived from the WIND Toolkit and may be used with the following citations: Draxl, C., B.M. Hodge, A. Clifton, and J. McCaa. 2015. Overview and Meteorological Validation of the Wind Integration National Dataset Toolkit (Technical Report, NREL/TP-5000-61740). Golden, CO: National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Draxl, C., B.M. Hodge, A. Clifton, and J. McCaa. 2015. "The Wind Integration National Dataset (WIND) Toolkit." Applied Energy 151: 355366. Lieberman-Cribbin, W., C. Draxl, and A. Clifton. 2014. Guide to Using the WIND Toolkit Validation Code (Technical Report, NREL/TP-5000-62595). Golden, CO: National Renewable Energy Laboratory. King, J., A. Clifton, and B.M. Hodge. 2014. Validation of Power Output for the WIND Toolkit (Technical Report, NREL/TP-5D00-61714). Golden, CO: National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

WIND Toolkit Long-term Ensemble Dataset (WTK-LED), an updated version of the meteorological WIND Toolkit, is a meteorological dataset providing high-resolution time series, including interannual variability and model uncertainty of wind speed at every modeling grid point to indicate ranges of possible wind speeds. The data were produced using the Weather Research and Forecasting Model (WRF). The vertical grid used in WTK-LED includes many vertical layers in the atmospheric boundary layer to provide information of atmospheric quantities across the rotor layer of utility scale and distributed wind turbines. The WTK-LED includes: (1) Numerical simulations of wind speed and other meteorological variables covering the contiguous United States (CONUS) and Alaska, with high-resolution (5-minute [min], 2-kilometer [km]) data for 3 years (2018-2020): WTK-LED CONUS, WTK-LED Alaska. (2) Climate simulations from Argonne National Laboratory covering North America, including Alaska, Canada, and most of Mexico and the Caribbean islands. These simulations complement the new WTK-LED to offer a 4-km, hourly dataset covering 20 years (2001-2020): WTK-LED Climate. (3) Specific long-term, high-resolution offshore simulations have been conducted separately for the U.S. coasts, Hawaii, and the Great Lakes, leading to the 2023 National Offshore Wind dataset: NOW-23. The data for Hawaii include land-based data and are part of WTK-LED Hawaii. Because the accuracy of simulations from a mesoscale model, such as WRF, varies depending on the location and weather situation, and can reach up to several m/s for wind speed, we provide simulated wind speed uncertainty estimates to the community to be used in conjunction with the deterministic model simulations. This dataset was developed to satisfy a wide group of stakeholders across various wind energy disciplines, including but not limited to stakeholders in the distributed and utility scale wind industry, the new emerging airborne wind energy field, grid integration, power systems modeling, environmental modeling, and researchers in academia, and to close some of the gaps that current public datasets have. Based on our validation results to date, we suggest use cases and applications for each dataset of the WTK-LED as shown in "WTK-LED Use Cases" resource below.

Wind resource data for North America was produced using the Weather Research and Forecasting Model (WRF). The WRF model was initialized with the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts Interim Reanalysis (ERA-Interm) data set with an initial grid spacing of 54 km. Three internal nested domains were used to refine the spatial resolution to 18, 6, and finally 2 km. The WRF model was run for years 2007 to 2014. While outputs were extracted from WRF at 5 minute time-steps, due to storage limitations instantaneous hourly time-step are provided for all variables while full 5 min resolution data is provided for wind speed and wind direction only.

The following variables were extracted from the WRF model data: - Wind Speed at 10, 40, 60, 80, 100, 120, 140, 160, 200 m - Wind Direction at 10, 40, 60, 80, 100, 120, 140, 160, 200 m - Temperature at 2, 10, 40, 60, 80, 100, 120, 140, 160, 200 m - Pressure at 0, 100, 200 m - Surface Precipitation Rate - Surface Relative Humidity - Inverse Monin Obukhov Length

This data provides modeled annual average wind speed for Southern Canada both onshore and offshore for the period 2007–2013. This dataset was derived from the WIND Toolkit and may be used with the following citations: Draxl, C., B.M. Hodge, A. Clifton, and J. McCaa. 2015. Overview and Meteorological Validation of the Wind Integration National Dataset Toolkit (Technical Report, NREL/TP-5000-61740). Golden, CO: National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Draxl, C., B.M. Hodge, A. Clifton, and J. McCaa. 2015. "The Wind Integration National Dataset (WIND) Toolkit." Applied Energy 151: 355366. Lieberman-Cribbin, W., C. Draxl, and A. Clifton. 2014. Guide to Using the WIND Toolkit Validation Code (Technical Report, NREL/TP-5000-62595). Golden, CO: National Renewable Energy Laboratory. King, J., A. Clifton, and B.M. Hodge. 2014. Validation of Power Output for the WIND Toolkit (Technical Report, NREL/TP-5D00-61714). Golden, CO: National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

This spreadsheet contains per-site metadata for the WIND Toolkit sites and serves as an index for the raw data hosted on Globus connect (nrel#globus:/globusro/met_data). Aside from the metadata, per site average power and capacity factor are given. This data was prepared by 3TIER under contract by NREL and is public domain. Authoritative documentation on the creation of the underlying dataset is at: Final Report on the Creation of the Wind Integration National Dataset (WIND) Toolkit and API: http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy16osti/66189.pdf

This data provides modeled annual average wind speed for Mexico and surrounding areas both onshore and offshore for the period 2007–2013. This dataset was derived from the WIND Toolkit and may be used with the following citations: Draxl, C., B.M. Hodge, A. Clifton, and J. McCaa. 2015. Overview and Meteorological Validation of the Wind Integration National Dataset Toolkit (Technical Report, NREL/TP-5000-61740). Golden, CO: National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Draxl, C., B.M. Hodge, A. Clifton, and J. McCaa. 2015. "The Wind Integration National Dataset (WIND) Toolkit." Applied Energy 151: 355366. Lieberman-Cribbin, W., C. Draxl, and A. Clifton. 2014. Guide to Using the WIND Toolkit Validation Code (Technical Report, NREL/TP-5000-62595). Golden, CO: National Renewable Energy Laboratory. King, J., A. Clifton, and B.M. Hodge. 2014. Validation of Power Output for the WIND Toolkit (Technical Report, NREL/TP-5D00-61714). Golden, CO: National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

Abstract

This data provides modeled annual average wind speed for the contiguous United States both onshore and offshore for the period 2007–2013 derived from NREL's WIND Toolkit.

Publisher: National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, Colorado Publication date: 2015

Methodology

EIDC converted the original multiple raster (GeoTiff) files into a single tabular table with polygon geometry.

Original files:

• Format: raster
• File Type: GeoTiff
• Projection: Lambert Conformal Conic
• Unit: meters / second
• Geodetic: WGS84, EPSG: 4326
• Data resolution: 2km x 2km
• Raster value: Multi-year (2007-2013) Annual Average Wind Speed, meters per second, at 10 - 100 meters above surface level

%3C!-- --%3E

This dataset:

• Format: Tabular data with a geometry (polygons) column
• File Type: This dataset can be downloaded as .csv and converted into .shp or .geojson based on the geometry column.
• Unit: meters / second
• Geodetic: WGS84, EPSG: 4326
• Data resolution: 2km x 2km
• Attributes: Multi-year (2007-2013) Annual Average Wind Speed, meters per second, at 10 - 200 meters above surface level

%3C!-- --%3E

Usage

This dataset was derived from the WIND Toolkit and may be used with the following citations:

Draxl, C., B.M. Hodge, A. Clifton, and J. McCaa. 2015. Overview and Meteorological Validation of the Wind Integration National Dataset Toolkit (Technical Report, NREL/TP-5000-61740). Golden, CO: National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

Draxl, C., B.M. Hodge, A. Clifton, and J. McCaa. 2015. "The Wind Integration National Dataset (WIND) Toolkit." Applied Energy 151: 355366.

Lieberman-Cribbin, W., C. Draxl, and A. Clifton. 2014. Guide to Using the WIND Toolkit Validation Code (Technical Report, NREL/TP-5000-62595). Golden, CO: National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

King, J., A. Clifton, and B.M. Hodge. 2014. Validation of Power Output for the WIND Toolkit (Technical Report, NREL/TP-5D00-61714). Golden, CO: National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

Related Literature

Wang, Y.-H., Walter, R. K., White, C., Farr, H., & Ruttenberg, B. I. (2019). Assessment of surface wind datasets for estimating offshore wind energy along the Central California Coast. Renewable Energy, 133, 343–353. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2018.10.008

Slusarewicz, J. H., & Cohan, D. S. (2018). Assessing solar and wind complementarity in Texas. Renewables: Wind, Water, and Solar, 5(1), 7. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40807-018-0054-3Lopez, A., Mai, T., Lantz, E., Harrison-Atlas, D., Williams, T., & Maclaurin, G. (2021). Land use and turbine technology influences on wind potential in the United States. Energy, 223, 120044. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2021.120044

Satkauskas, I., Maack, J., Reynolds, M., Sigler, D., Panda, K., & Jones, W. (2022). Simulating impacts of extreme events on grids with high penetrations of wind power resources. 2022 IEEE/PES Transmission and Distribution Conference and Exposition (T&D), 01–05. https://doi.org/10.1109/TD43745.2022.9816884

Feng, C., Sun, M., Cui, M., Chartan, E. K., Hodge, B.-M., & Zhang, J. (2019). Characterizing forecastability of wind sites in the United States. Renewable Energy, 133, 1352–1365. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2018.08.085

The Wind Integration National Dataset (WIND) Toolkit, developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), provides modeled wind speeds at multiple elevations. Instantaneous wind measurements were analyzed from more than 126,000 sites in the continental United States for the years 2007–2013. The model results were mapped on a 2-km grid. A subset of the contiguous United States data for 2012 is shown here. Offshore data is shown to 50 nautical miles.Time Extent: Annual 2012Units: m/sCell Size: 2 kmSource Type: StretchedPixel Type: 32 Bit FloatData Projection: GCS WGS84Mosaic Projection:  WGS 1984 Web MercatorExtent: Contiguous United StatesSource: NREL Wind Integration National Dataset v1.1WIND is an update and expansion of the Eastern Wind Integration Data Set and Western Wind Integration Data Set. It supports the next generation of wind integration studies.Accessing Elevation InformationEach of the 9 elevation slices can be accessed, visualized, and analyzed. In ArcGIS Pro, go to the Multidimensional Ribbon and use the Elevation pull-down menu. In ArcGIS Online, it is best to use Web Map Viewer Classic where the elevation slider will automatically appear on the righthand side. The elevation slider will be available in the new Map Viewer in an upcoming release. What can you do with this layer?This layer may be added to maps to visualize and quickly interrogate each pixel value. The pop-up provides the pixel’s wind speed value.This analytical imagery tile layer can be used in analysis. For example, the layer may be added to ArcGIS Pro and proposed wind turbine locations can be used to Sample the layer at multiple elevation to determine the optimal hub height. Source data can be accessed on Amazon Web ServicesUsers of the WIND Toolkit should use the following citations:Draxl, C., B.M. Hodge, A. Clifton, and J. McCaa. 2015. Overview and Meteorological Validation of the Wind Integration National Dataset Toolkit (Technical Report, NREL/TP-5000-61740). Golden, CO: National Renewable Energy Laboratory.Draxl, C., B.M. Hodge, A. Clifton, and J. McCaa. 2015. "The Wind Integration National Dataset (WIND) Toolkit." Applied Energy 151: 355366.King, J., A. Clifton, and B.M. Hodge. 2014. Validation of Power Output for the WIND Toolkit (Technical Report, NREL/TP-5D00-61714). Golden, CO: National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

To address the need for regularly updated wind resource data, NREL has processed the High-Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR) outputs for use in grid integration modeling. The HRRR is an hourly-updated operational forecast product produced by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) (Dowell et al., 2022). Several barriers have prevented the HRRR's widespread proliferation in the wind energy industry: missing timesteps (prior to 2019), challenging file format for wind energy analysis, limited vertical height resolution, and negative bias versus legacy WIND Toolkit data (2007-2013). NREL has applied re-gridding, interpolation, and bias-correction to the native HRRR data to overcome these limitations. This results in the now-publicly-available bias corrected and interpolated HRRR (BC-HRRR) dataset for weather years 2015 to 2023. Bias correction is necessary for wind resource consistency across weather years to be used simultaneously in planning-focused grid integration studies alongside the original WIND Toolkit data. We show that quantile mapping with the WIND Toolkit as a historical baseline is an effective method for bias correcting the interpolated HRRR data: the BC-HRRR has reduced mean bias versus comparable gridded wind resource datasets (+0.12 m/s versus Vortex) and has very low mean bias versus ground measurement stations (+0.01 m/s) (Buster et al., 2024). BC-HRRR's consistency with the legacy WIND Toolkit allows NREL to extend grid integration analysis to 15+ weather years of wind data with low-overhead extensibility to future years as they are made available by NOAA. As with historical datasets like the WIND Toolkit, BC-HRRR is intended for use in grid integration modeling (e.g., capacity expansion, production cost, and resource adequacy modeling) both independently and alongside the legacy WIND Toolkit.

Reclassified Rasters and then Polygons were created from the point layers described below in order to provide a quicker Map Service for the MarineCadastre.gov National Viewer. Downloads of these files and the original points are available from the MarineCadastre.gov Data Registry Description of source data points: The geodatabase was created by computing statistical wind speed parameters for seven years of wind data from NREL’s WIND Toolkit and placing them on a GIS grid that corresponds to the existing BOEM aliquot lease grid for the Atlantic coastal region. For the Atlantic coastal region, seven years of modeled mean wind speed data on an approximately 2-km grid were obtained from NREL WIND toolkit . Each 1.2-km BOEM aliquot grid cell was assigned a mean wind speed that corresponds to the nearest 2-km WIND Toolkit grid cell representing the majority of its area. The Weibull parameters were estimated by computing the parameters of a Weibull distribution that has the same mean speed and wind energy as the WIND Toolkit data. This process created a long-term, monthly, and hourly (by month and for the whole 7-year period) Weibull representation of the wind speed for each aliquot. The resulting dataset is intended to provide broad estimates of wind speed variation for the purposes of identifying possible good wind energy sites. It is not intended to provide estimates of possible energy production for the purpose of making offshore wind project investment or financing decisions in specific locations. Explanation of Attributes: Results in the geodatabase are reported on the existing 1.2 km x 1.2 km aliquot grid defined by BOEM for the Atlantic coastal region. Wind speed statistics are reported at the center point of each aliquot grid, but represent the mean values over the entire area of each grid cell. The data set delivered to BOEM is a geodatabase consisting of 14 layers. There is one layer for the long-term statistics, one layer for each month, and one polygon layer of aliquots covered by the data. The long-term shapefile includes mean wind speed and Weibull parameters to capture the long-term wind speed distribution of the entire 7-year time series. Each monthly shapefile contains mean wind speed and Weibull parameters for that month overall and for each hour of the day within that month. All times are in EST (UTC-5). Source: National Renewable Energy Laboratory. 15013 Denver West Parkway, Golden, CO 80401. Phone: 303-275-3000. NREL is a national laboratory of the U.S Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. Operated by the Alliance for Sustainable Energy, LLC. Additional Information: Contact George Scott at george.scott@nrel.gov for more information.View Dataset on the Gateway

A map of wind speeds across Michigan at 100-meter elevation (m/s).A USA States Boundary layer was downloaded from the Census Bureau (last updated 2018). The Michigan attribute data was exported from this dataset to form a Michigan Boundary layer. Wind speed data at 100m elevation was downloaded from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) (Wind Resource Maps and Data | Geospatial Data Science | NREL) (last updated in September 2017). The layer was clipped to the Michigan Boundary layer and then the raster layer was reclassified into five value ranges.NREL Dataset Citations:Draxl, C., B.M. Hodge, A. Clifton, and J. McCaa. 2015. Overview and Meteorological Validation of the Wind Integration National Dataset Toolkit (Technical Report, NREL/TP-5000-61740). Golden, CO: National Renewable Energy Laboratory.Draxl, C., B.M. Hodge, A. Clifton, and J. McCaa. 2015. "The Wind Integration National Dataset (WIND) Toolkit." Applied Energy 151: 355366.King, J., A. Clifton, and B.M. Hodge. 2014. Validation of Power Output for the WIND Toolkit (Technical Report, NREL/TP-5D00-61714). Golden, CO: National Renewable Energy Laboratory.Lieberman-Cribbin, W., C. Draxl, and A. Clifton. 2014. Guide to Using the WIND Toolkit Validation Code (Technical Report, NREL/TP-5000-62595). Golden, CO: National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

A map of wind speeds across Michigan at 80-meter elevation (m/s).A USA States Boundary layer was downloaded from the Census Bureau (last updated 2018). The Michigan attribute data was exported from this dataset to form a Michigan Boundary layer. Wind speed data at 80m elevation was downloaded from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) (Wind Resource Maps and Data | Geospatial Data Science | NREL) (last updated in September 2017). The layer was clipped to the Michigan Boundary layer and then the raster layer was reclassified into five value ranges.NREL Dataset Citations:Draxl, C., B.M. Hodge, A. Clifton, and J. McCaa. 2015. Overview and Meteorological Validation of the Wind Integration National Dataset Toolkit (Technical Report, NREL/TP-5000-61740). Golden, CO: National Renewable Energy Laboratory.Draxl, C., B.M. Hodge, A. Clifton, and J. McCaa. 2015. "The Wind Integration National Dataset (WIND) Toolkit." Applied Energy 151: 355366.King, J., A. Clifton, and B.M. Hodge. 2014. Validation of Power Output for the WIND Toolkit (Technical Report, NREL/TP-5D00-61714). Golden, CO: National Renewable Energy Laboratory.Lieberman-Cribbin, W., C. Draxl, and A. Clifton. 2014. Guide to Using the WIND Toolkit Validation Code (Technical Report, NREL/TP-5000-62595). Golden, CO: National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

The 2023 National Offshore Wind data set (NOW-23) is the latest wind resource data set for offshore regions in the United States, which supersedes, for its offshore component, the Wind Integration National Dataset (WIND) Toolkit, which was published about a decade ago and is currently one of the primary resources for stakeholders conducting wind resource assessments in the continental United States.

The NOW-23 data set was produced using the Weather Research and Forecasting Model (WRF) version 4.2.1. A regional approach was used: for each offshore region, the WRF setup was selected based on validation against available observations. The WRF model was initialized with the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts 5 Reanalysis (ERA-5) data set, using a 6-hour refresh rate. The model is configured with an initial horizontal grid spacing of 6 km and an internal nested domain that refined the spatial resolution to 2 km. The model is run with 61 vertical levels, with 12 levels in the lower 300m of the atmosphere, stretching from 5 m to 45 m in height. The MYNN planetary boundary layer and surface layer schemes were used the North Atlantic, Mid Atlantic, Great Lakes, Hawaii, and North Pacific regions. On the other hand, using the YSU planetary boundary layer and MM5 surface layer schemes resulted in a better skill in the South Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico, and South Pacific regions. A more detailed description of the WRF model setup can be found in the WRF namelist files linked at the bottom of this page.

For all regions, the NOW-23 data set coverage starts on January 1, 2000. For Hawaii and the North Pacific regions, NOW-23 goes until December 31, 2019. For the South Pacific region, the model goes until 31 December, 2022. For all other regions, the model covers until December 31, 2020. Outputs are available at 5 minute resolution, and for all regions we have also included output files at hourly resolution. The NOW-23 data are provided here as HDF5 files. Examples of how to use the HSDS Service to Access the NOW-23 files are linked below. A list of the variables included in the NOW-23 files is also linked below.

No filters have been applied to the raw WRF output.

A map of wind speeds across Michigan at 60-meter elevation (m/s).A USA States Boundary layer was downloaded from the Census Bureau (last updated 2018). The Michigan attribute data was exported from this dataset to form a Michigan Boundary layer. Wind speed data at 60m elevation was downloaded from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) (Wind Resource Maps and Data | Geospatial Data Science | NREL) (last updated in September 2017). The layer was clipped to the Michigan Boundary layer and then the raster layer was reclassified into six value ranges.NREL Dataset Citations:Draxl, C., B.M. Hodge, A. Clifton, and J. McCaa. 2015. Overview and Meteorological Validation of the Wind Integration National Dataset Toolkit (Technical Report, NREL/TP-5000-61740). Golden, CO: National Renewable Energy Laboratory.Draxl, C., B.M. Hodge, A. Clifton, and J. McCaa. 2015. "The Wind Integration National Dataset (WIND) Toolkit." Applied Energy 151: 355366.King, J., A. Clifton, and B.M. Hodge. 2014. Validation of Power Output for the WIND Toolkit (Technical Report, NREL/TP-5D00-61714). Golden, CO: National Renewable Energy Laboratory.Lieberman-Cribbin, W., C. Draxl, and A. Clifton. 2014. Guide to Using the WIND Toolkit Validation Code (Technical Report, NREL/TP-5000-62595). Golden, CO: National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

This dataset contains summary statistics for offshore wind resources for the continental United States derived from the Wind Integration National Datatset (WIND) Toolkit. These data are available in two formats: GDB - Compressed geodatabases containing statistical summaries aligned with lease blocks (aliquots) stored in a GIS format. These data are partitioned into Pacific, Atlantic, and Gulf resource regions. HDF5 - Statistical summaries of all points in the offshore Pacific, Atlantic, and Gulf offshore regions. These data are located on the original WIND Toolkit grid and have not been reassigned or downsampled to lease blocks. These data were developed under contract by NREL for the Bureau of Oceanic Energy Management (BOEM).

This dataset provides estimated hourly dynamic line ratings for ~84,000 transmission lines across the contiguous United States from 2007-2013. The calculation methods are described in the presentation linked below, and the associated open-source Python code repository is linked in the Resources section below. Abbreviations used in filenames and descriptions are: - SLR: static line ratings - ALR: ambient-temperature-adjusted line ratings - NLR: ambient-temperature- and day/night-irradiance-adjusted line ratings - CLR: ambient-temperature- and clear-sky-irradiance-adjusted line ratings - ILR: ambient-temperature- and measured-irradiance-adjusted line ratings - DLR: full dynamic line ratings (including air temperature/pressure, wind speed/direction, and measured irradiance) Transmission lines are referenced by their ID in the Homeland Infrastructure Foundation-Level Data (HIFLD) on Transmission Lines (linked in Resources section). Time indices are in UTC. The data files contain ratios between modeled hourly ratings and modeled static ratings. Columns are indexed by HIFLD ID; rows are indexed by hourly timestamps from 2007-2013 (UTC). A data directory is also included in the Resources section. The SLR files contain modeled static ratings (the denominator of the ratios in the files described above) in amps. As described in the presentation linked in the Resources section below, SLR calculations assume an ambient air temperature of 40 C, air pressure of 101 kPa, wind speed of 2 feet per second (0.61 m/s) perpendicular to the conductor, global horizontal irradiance of 1000 W/m^2, and conductor absorptivity and emissivity of 0.8. Conductor assumptions are Linnet for ~69 kV and below, Condor for ~115 kV, Martin for ~230 kV, and Cardinal for ~345 kV and above. Caveats and Limitations Results are sensitive to the weather data used. Validation studies on the WIND Toolkit and NSRDB are available at: - King, J. et al. "Validation of Power Output for the WIND Toolkit", 2014 (https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy14osti/61714.pdf) - Draxl, C. et al. "Overview and Meteorological Validation of the Wind Integration National Dataset Toolkit", 2015 (https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy15osti/61740.pdf) - Sengupta, M. et al. "Validation of the National Solar Radiation Database (NSRDB) (2005-2012)", 2015 (https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy15osti/64981.pdf) - Habte, A. et al. "Evaluation of the National Solar Radiation Database (NSRDB Version 2): 1998-2015", 2017 (https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy17osti/67722.pdf) More work is required to determine how well ratings calculated from NSRDB and WIND Toolkit data reflect the actual ratings observed by installed sensors (such as sag or tension monitors). In general, ratings calculated from modeled weather data are not a substitute for direct sensor data. Assuming a single representative conductor type (ACSR of a single diameter) for each voltage level is an important simplification; reported line ratings at a given voltage level can vary widely. HIFLD line routes are primarily based on imagery instead of exact construction data and may have errors. We use historical weather data directly; calculated line ratings are thus more indicative of real-time ratings than forecasted ratings

This data contains paired European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts Reanalysis version 5 (ERA5) and the Wind Integration National Dataset Toolkit (WTK) images for 2007 and 2010 over two regions in the US, with domain sizes ~800x800 (latitudes from 25.89 to 41.58, and longitudes from -97.25 to -77.85) and ~600x1600 (latitudes from 32 to 46.68, and longitudes from -126.81 to -85.35), respectively. This is created using tools from the NREL-rex and NREL-sup3r packages (both linked as resources below). A Lambert projection is used for WTK. The data includes two variables: the u and v components of the wind velocity at 10m from the surface. The training and validation splits consist of ERA5 at 30-km and WTK at 6-km spatial resolution from the year 2007. This 6-km WTK dataset is created by coarsening the WTK grid from its original 2-km resolution to 6-km resolution. The 30-km ERA5 is realigned, i.e. regrided to the 6-km WTK coarsened grid using inverse distance weighted interpolation. The year 2010 is used for testing, including two sets of test data with (1) ERA5 at 30-km and WTK at 6-km spatial resolution and (2) ERA5 at 30-km and WTK at 2-km spatial resolution. All of them have a temporal resolution of 1-hour. This data allows training machine learning models to downscale from low-resolution (LR) ERA5 to high-resolution (HR) WTK with an upsampling factor (the ratio of the size of the HR grid to the LR grid) of 5x and testing it on the same 5x factor as well as a higher upsampling factor of 15x. Please refer to the "Project Preprint" resource linked below for more details on the dataset and experiments. The work detailed in the "Sup3rWind Preprint" resource below also performs ERA5 to WTK downscaling.

The site suitability criteria included in the techno-economic land use screens are listed below. As this list is an update to previous cycles, tribal lands, prime farmland, and flood zones are not included as they are not technically infeasible for development. The techno-economic site suitability exclusion thresholds are presented in table 1. Distances indicate the minimum distance from each feature for commercial scale wind developmentAttributes: Steeply sloped areas: change in vertical elevation compared to horizontal distancePopulation density: the number of people living in a 1 km2 area Urban areas: defined by the U.S. Census. Water bodies: defined by the U.S. National Atlas Water Feature Areas, available from Argonne National Lab Energy Zone Mapping Tool Railways: a comprehensive database of North America's railway system from the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), available from Argonne National Lab Energy Zone Mapping Tool Major highways: available from ESRI Living Atlas Airports: The Airports dataset including other aviation facilities as of July 13, 2018 is part of the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT)/Bureau of Transportation Statistics's (BTS's) National Transportation Atlas Database (NTAD). The Airports database is a geographic point database of aircraft landing facilities in the United States and U.S. Territories. Attribute data is provided on the physical and operational characteristics of the landing facility, current usage including enplanements and aircraft operations, congestion levels and usage categories. This geospatial data is derived from the FAA's National Airspace System Resource Aeronautical Data Product. Available from Argonne National Lab Energy Zone Mapping Tool Active mines: Active Mines and Mineral Processing Plants in the United States in 2003Military Lands: Land owned by the federal government that is part of a US military base, camp, post, station, yard, center, or installation. Table 1 Wind Steeply sloped areas >10o Population density >100/km2 Capacity factor <20% Urban areas <1000 m Water bodies <250 m Railways <250 m Major highways <125 m Airports <5000 m Active mines <1000 m Military Lands <3000m For more information about the processes and sources used to develop the screening criteria see sources 1-7 in the footnotes. Data updates occur as needed, corresponding to typical 3-year CPUC IRP planning cyclesFootnotes:[1] Lopez, A. et. al. “U.S. Renewable Energy Technical Potentials: A GIS-Based Analysis,” 2012. https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy12osti/51946.pdf[2] https://greeningthegrid.org/Renewable-Energy-Zones-Toolkit/topics/social-environmental-and-other-impacts#ReadingListAndCaseStudies[3] Multi-Criteria Analysis for Renewable Energy (MapRE), University of California Santa Barbara. https://mapre.es.ucsb.edu/[4] Larson, E. et. al. “Net-Zero America: Potential Pathways, Infrastructure, and Impacts, Interim Report.” Princeton University, 2020. https://environmenthalfcentury.princeton.edu/sites/g/files/toruqf331/files/2020-12/Princeton_NZA_Interim_Report_15_Dec_2020_FINAL.pdf.[5] Wu, G. et. al. “Low-Impact Land Use Pathways to Deep Decarbonization of Electricity.” Environmental Research Letters 15, no. 7 (July 10, 2020). https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab87d1.[6] RETI Coordinating Committee, RETI Stakeholder Steering Committee. “Renewable Energy Transmission Initiative Phase 1B Final Report.” California Energy Commission, January 2009.[7] Pletka, Ryan, and Joshua Finn. “Western Renewable Energy Zones, Phase 1: QRA Identification Technical Report.” Black & Veatch and National Renewable Energy Laboratory, 2009. https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy10osti/46877.pdf.[8]https://www.census.gov/cgi-bin/geo/shapefiles/index.php?year=2019&layergroup=Urban+Areas[9]https://ezmt.anl.gov/[10]https://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=fc870766a3994111bce4a083413988e4[11]https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mineplant/Credits Title: Techno-economic screening criteria for utility-scale wind energy installations for Integrated Resource Planning Purpose for creation: These site suitability criteria are for use in electric system planning, capacity expansion modeling, and integrated resource planning. Keywords: wind energy, resource potential, techno-economic, IRP Extent: western states of the contiguous U.S. Use Limitations The geospatial data created by the use of these techno-economic screens inform high-level estimates of technical renewable resource potential for electric system planning and should not be used, on their own, to guide siting of generation projects nor assess project-level impacts.Confidentiality: Public ContactEmily Leslie Emily@MontaraMtEnergy.comSam Schreiber sam.schreiber@ethree.com Jared Ferguson Jared.Ferguson@cpuc.ca.govOluwafemi Sawyerr femi@ethree.com

This dataset was developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) for the U.S. Agency for International Development's (USAID) South Asia Regional Initiative for Energy Cooperation (SARI/E). The dataset contains Wind Power Density at 50-m Above Ground Level in the form of a GIS shapefile. The data were output in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) format and incorporated into a Geospatial Toolkit (GsT). The GsT allows the user to examine the resource data in a geospatial context along with other key information relevant to renewable energy development, such as transportation networks, transmission corridors, existing power facilities, load centers, terrain conditions, and land use.