This dataset provides locations and technical specifications of wind turbines in the United States, almost all of which are utility-scale. Utility-scale turbines are ones that generate power and feed it into the grid, supplying a utility with energy. They are usually much larger than turbines that would feed a house or business. The regularly updated database contains wind turbine records that have been collected, digitized, and locationally verified. Turbine data were gathered from the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) Digital Obstacle File (DOF) and Obstruction Evaluation Airport Airspace Analysis (OE-AAA), American Clean Power (ACP) Association (formerly American Wind Energy Association (AWEA)), Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), and the United States Geological Survey (USGS), and were merged and collapsed into a single dataset. Verification of the turbine positions was done by visual interpretation using high-resolution aerial imagery in ESRI ArcGIS Desktop. A locational error of plus or minus 10 meters for turbine locations was tolerated. Technical specifications for turbines were assigned based on the wind turbine make and models as provided by manufacturers and project developers directly, and via FAA datasets, information on the wind project developer or turbine manufacturer websites, or other online sources. Some facility and turbine information on make and model did not exist or was difficult to obtain. Thus, uncertainty may exist for certain turbine specifications. Similarly, some turbines were not yet built, not built at all, or for other reasons cannot be verified visually. Location and turbine specifications data quality are rated, and a confidence level (1 to 3) is recorded for both. None of the data are field verified.

This dataset provides locations and technical specifications of wind turbines in the United States, almost all of which are utility-scale. Utility-scale turbines are ones that generate power and feed it into the grid, supplying a utility with energy. They are usually much larger than turbines that would feed a homeowner or business.

The data formats downloadable from the Minnesota Geospatial Commons contain just the Minnesota turbines. Data, maps and services accessed from the USWTDB website provide nationwide turbines.

The regularly updated database has wind turbine records that have been collected, digitized, and locationally verified. Turbine data were gathered from the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) Digital Obstacle File (DOF) and Obstruction Evaluation Airport Airspace Analysis (OE-AAA), the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), and the United States Geological Survey (USGS), and were merged and collapsed into a single data set.

Verification of the turbine positions was done by visual interpretation using high-resolution aerial imagery in Esri ArcGIS Desktop. A locational error of plus or minus 10 meters for turbine locations was tolerated. Technical specifications for turbines were assigned based on the wind turbine make and models as provided by manufacturers and project developers directly, and via FAA datasets, information on the wind project developer or turbine manufacturer websites, or other online sources. Some facility and turbine information on make and model did not exist or was difficult to obtain. Thus, uncertainty may exist for certain turbine specifications. Similarly, some turbines were not yet built, not built at all, or for other reasons cannot be verified visually. Location and turbine specifications data quality are rated and a confidence is recorded for both. None of the data are field verified.

The U.S. Wind Turbine Database website provides the national data in many different formats: shapefile, CSV, GeoJSON, web services (cached and dynamic), API, and web viewer. See: https://eerscmap.usgs.gov/uswtdb/

The web viewer provides many options to search; filter by attribute, date and location; and customize the map display. For details and screenshots of these options, see: https://eerscmap.usgs.gov/uswtdb/help/

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This metadata record was adapted by the Minnesota Geospatial Information Office (MnGeo) from the national version of the metadata. It describes the Minnesota extract of the shapefile data that has been projected from geographic to UTM coordinates and converted to Esri file geodatabase (fgdb) format. There may be more recent updates available on the national website. Accessing the data via the national web services or API will always provide the most recent data.

Abstract

Dataset quality ***: High quality dataset that was quality-checked by the EIDC team

The United States Wind Turbine Database (USWTDB) provides the locations of land-based and offshore wind turbines in the United States, corresponding wind project information, and turbine technical specifications. The creation of this database was jointly funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Wind Energy Technologies Office (WETO) via the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) Electricity Markets and Policy Group, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Energy Resources Program, and the American Clean Power Association (ACP). The database is being continuously updated through collaboration among LBNL, USGS, and ACP. Wind turbine records are collected and compiled from various public and private sources, digitized or position-verified from aerial imagery, and quality checked. Technical specifications for turbines are obtained directly from project developers and turbine manufacturers, or they are based on data obtained from public sources.

Methodology

The USWTDB combines a 2014 USGS data set (48,956 wind turbines, including decommissioned and duplicate turbines) with a 2017 LBNL data set (43,827 wind turbines) and includes regular updates from ACP's WindIQ as well as the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Digital Obstacle File (DOF) and Obstacle Evaluation Airport Airspace Analysis (OE-AAA). The USWTDB is updated as frequently as quarterly as new data become available and will lag installations by approximately one quarter.

All turbine points in the data set are visually verified using high-resolution aerial imagery in ESRI ArcGIS Desktop, and X/Y locations are manually moved to the base of the turbine with an estimated locational tolerance of 10 meters. Visual verification also enables identification and removal of duplicate turbine points and decommissioned turbines from the database, although some decommissioned turbines likely have not yet been identified and thus remain in the data set. Moreover, because of a lag in obtaining up-to-date aerial imagery, some turbine locations have not been visually verified.

Technical specifications for turbines are assigned based on turbine make and model as described in literature, specifications listed in the FAA DOF, and collected via ACP, LBNL, and turbine manufacturer websites. Because some make and model information does not exist or is difficult to obtain, uncertainty may exist for certain turbine specifications.

The uncertainties associated with location and attribute data quality are rated, and a confidence level is recorded. None of the data in the USWTDB are field verified.

Related Literature

Walker, C. (2020). Using the United States Wind Turbine Database to identify increasing turbine size, capacity and other development trends. https://doi.org/10.4236/epe.2020.127025

Miller, L. M., & Keith, D. W. (2018). Observation-based solar and wind power capacity factors and power densities. Environmental Research Letters, 13(10), 104008. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aae102

Preziuso, D., Orrell, A., & Lantz, E. (2022). Categorizing distributed wind energy installations in the United States to inform research and stakeholder priorities. Energy, Sustainability and Society, 12(1), 31. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13705-022-00357-1

Diffendorfer, J. E., Vanderhoof, M. K., & Ancona, Z. H. (2022). Wind turbine wakes can impact down-wind vegetation greenness. Environmental Research Letters, 17(10), 104025. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac8da9

The United States Wind Turbine Database (USWTDB) provides the locations of land-based and offshore wind turbines in the United States, corresponding wind project information, and turbine technical specifications. The creation of this database was jointly funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Wind Energy Technologies Office (WETO) via the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) Electricity Markets and Policy Group, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Energy Resources Program, and the American Clean Power Association (ACP). The database is being continuously updated through collaboration among LBNL, USGS, and ACP. Wind turbine records are collected and compiled from various public and private sources, digitized or position-verified from aerial imagery, and quality checked. Technical specifications for turbines are obtained directly from project developers and turbine manufacturers, or they are based on data obtained from public sources.Data accessed from here: https://eerscmap.usgs.gov/uswtdb/

The United States Wind Turbine Database (USWTDB) provides the locations of land-based and offshore wind turbines in the United States, corresponding wind project information, and turbine technical specifications. Wind turbine records are collected and compiled from various public and private sources, digitized and position-verified from aerial imagery, and quality checked. The USWTDB is available for download in a variety of tabular and geospatial file formats, to meet a range of user/software needs. Dynamic web services are available for users that wish to access the USWTDB as a Representational State Transfer Services (RESTful) web service. Archived from https://energy.usgs.gov/uswtdb/

This archive contains raw input data for the Public Utility Data Liberation (PUDL) software developed by Catalyst Cooperative. It is organized into Frictionless Data Packages. For additional information about this data and PUDL, see the following resources:

The PUDL Repository on GitHub

PUDL Documentation

Other Catalyst Cooperative data archives

This data provides locations and technical specifications of legacy versions (ver. 1.0 - ver. X.X) of the United States Wind Turbines database. Each release, typically done quarterly, updates the database with newly installed wind turbines, removes wind turbines that have been identified as dismantled, and applies other verifications based on updated imagery and ongoing quality-control. Almost all turbines in this data are utility-scale turbines that generate power and feed it into the grid, supplying a utility with energy. They are usually much larger than turbines that would feed a house or business. The regularly updated database contains wind turbine records that have been collected, digitized, and locationally verified. Turbine data were gathered from the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) Digital Obstacle File (DOF) and Obstruction Evaluation Airport Airspace Analysis (OE-AAA), American Clean Power (ACP) Association (formerly American Wind Energy Association (AWEA)), Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), and the United States Geological Survey (USGS), and were merged and collapsed into a single dataset. Verification of the turbine positions was done by visual interpretation using high-resolution aerial imagery in ESRI ArcGIS Desktop. A locational error of plus or minus 10 meters for turbine locations was tolerated. Technical specifications for turbines were assigned based on the wind turbine make and models as provided by manufacturers and project developers directly, and via FAA datasets, information on the wind project developer or turbine manufacturer websites, or other online sources. Some facility and turbine information on make and model did not exist or was difficult to obtain. Thus, uncertainty may exist for certain turbine specifications. Similarly, some turbines were not yet built, not built at all, or for other reasons cannot be verified visually. Location and turbine specifications data quality are rated, and a confidence level (1 to 3) is recorded for both. None of the data are field verified. The USWTDB Viewer, created by the USGS Energy Resources Program, lets you visualize, inspect, interact, and download the most current USWTDB version only, through a dynamic web application. https://energy.usgs.gov/uswtdb/viewer/.

Data created from the combination of Wind Turbine Data created by the FAA and USGS. Duplicate turbines were removed. Below is the discription for each.FAA - Point shapefile of Wind Turbine locations in Wyoming as of December 2010. Turbine location and attribute data extracted from the FAA Obstruction Evaluation Database (https://oeaaa.faa.gov/oeaaa/external/portal.jsp). The FAA requires evaluation of any wind turbine (or structure) over 200ft. Therfore any wind turbine under 200ft would not be included in this data layer. In 2008 the FAA put a focus on wind turbines creating region categories specifically for wind turbines. With this, records for wind turbines before 2008 are less inclusive. The FAA database provides no determination of Wind Turbines that have been built and Wind Turbines that are still in planning stages. Therefore this layer includes Wind Turbines that may not be constructed yet but are in planning/development stages.USGS - The Wyoming wind turbine data set was developed for the project "Seasonal predictive habitat models for Greater Sage-grouse in Wyoming". This project is aimed at developing spatially-explicit seasonal distribution models for Sage-Grouse in Wyoming, which will provide resource managers tools for conservation planning. These specific data are being used for assessing the impact of disturbance resulting from wind energy development within Wyoming on sage-grouse populations. Additionally, this data will also support the Wyoming Landscape Conservation Initiative (WLCI). WLCI is a long-term, science-based, collaborative effort to ensure that the Southwest Wyoming's wildlife and its habitats are sustained over time with increased land-use pressures. Additional information about WLCI can be found at www.wlci.gov or in the Wyoming Landscape Conservation Initiative Science Workshop Proceedings (U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Report 2008-5073 found on-line at http://pubs.usgs.gov/sir/2008/5073/). These data represent locations of wind turbines found within Wyoming as of 08/01/2009. The attributes are estimates based on what information could be found via American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) and miscellaneous on-line reports. Caution should be used when using the data attributes. The locations are derived from NAIP August 2009 true color imagery and have a positional accuracy of approximately +/-5 meters. Because some wind turbines were under construction, under construction wind turbine locations will likely be less accurate, and therefore caution is required while using these data.

The U.S. Wind Turbine Database provides locations and technical specifications of wind turbines in the United States, almost all of which are utility-scale. Utility-scale turbines are ones that generate power and feed it into the grid, supplying a utility with energy. They are usually much larger than turbines that would feed a homeowner or business. The regularly updated database has wind turbine records that have been collected, digitized, and locationally verified. Turbine data were gathered from the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) Digital Obstacle File (DOF) and Obstruction Evaluation Airport Airspace Analysis (OE-AAA), the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), and the United States Geological Survey (USGS), and were merged and collapsed into a single data set. Verification of the turbine positions was done by visual interpretation using high-resolution aerial imagery in ESRI ArcGIS Desktop. A locational error of plus or minus 10 meters for turbine locations was tolerated. Technical specifications for turbines were assigned based on the wind turbine make and models as provided by manufacturers and project developers directly, and via FAA datasets, information on the wind project developer or turbine manufacturer websites, or other online sources. Some facility and turbine information on make and model did not exist or was difficult to obtain. Thus, uncertainty may exist for certain turbine specifications. Similarly, some turbines were not yet built, not built at all, or for other reasons cannot be verified visually. Location and turbine specifications data quality are rated and a confidence is recorded for both.

CDFW BIOS GIS Dataset, Contact: USWTDB United States Wind Turbine Database, Description: This data set provides industrial-scale onshore wind turbine locations in the United States through July 22, 2013, corresponding facility information, and turbine technical specifications.

This data set provides industrial-scale onshore wind turbine locations, corresponding facility information, and turbine technical specifications, in the United States to March 2014. The database has nearly 49,000 wind turbine records that have been collected, digitized, locationally verified, and internally quality assured and quality controlled. Turbines from the Federal Aviation Administration Digital Obstacle File, product date March 2, 2014, were used as the primary source of turbine data points. Verification of the position of turbines was done by visual interpretation using high-resolution aerial imagery in ESRI ArcGIS Desktop. Turbines without Federal Aviation Administration Obstacle Repository System (FAA ORS) numbers were visually identified and supplemental points were added to the collection. A locational error of plus or minus 10 meters for turbine positions was estimated. Wind farm facility names were identified from publicly available facility data sets. Facility names were then used in a web search of additional industry publications and press releases to attribute additional turbine information (such as manufacturer, model, and technical specifications of wind turbines). Wind farm facility location data from various wind and energy industry sources were used to search for and digitize turbines not in existing databases. Technical specifications assigned to were based on the make and model as described in literature, in the Federal Aviation Administration Digital Obstacle File, and information from the turbine manufacturers' websites. Some facility and turbine information did not exist or was difficult to obtain. Thus, uncertainty may be present. That uncertainty was rated and a confidence was recorded for both location and attribution data quality.

The United States Wind Turbine Database (USWTDB) provides the locations of land-based and offshore wind turbines in the United States, corresponding wind project information, and turbine technical specifications. The creation of this database was jointly funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Wind Energy Technologies Office (WETO) via the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) Electricity Markets and Policy Group, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Energy Resources Program, and the American Clean Power Association (ACP). The database is being continuously updated through collaboration among LBNL, USGS, and ACP. Wind turbine records are collected and compiled from various public and private sources, digitized or position-verified from aerial imagery, and quality checked. Technical specifications for turbines are obtained directly from project developers and turbine manufacturers, or they are based on data obtained from public sources.

To determine if invasive annual grasses increased around energy developments after the construction phase, we calculated an invasives index using Landsat TM and ETM+ imagery for a 34-year time period (1985-2018) and assessed trends for 1,755 wind turbines (from the U.S. Wind Turbine Database) installed between 1988 and 2013 in the southern California desert. The index uses the maximum normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) for early season greenness (January-June), and mean NDVI (July-October) for the later dry season. We estimated the relative cover of invasive annuals each year at turbine locations and control sites and tested for changes before and after each turbine was installed. These data were used to make final conclusions in the larger work described above. The GIS shapefile included in this USGS data release includes unique turbine IDs, as well as early season invasive (ESI) values for turbines and corresponding control sites summarized before and after the turbine installation date.

Global wind energy has expanded 5-fold since 2010 and is predicted to expand another 8–10-fold over the next 30 years. Wakes generated by wind turbines can alter downwind microclimates and potentially downwind vegetation. However, the design of past studies has made it difficult to isolate the impact of wake effects on vegetation from land cover change. We used hourly wind data to model wake and non-wake zones around 17 wind facilities across the U.S. and compared remotely-sensed vegetation greenness in wake and non-wake zones before and after construction. We located sampling sites only in the dominant vegetation type and in areas that were not disturbed before or after construction. We found evidence for wake effects on vegetation greenness at 10 of 17 facilities for portions of, or the entire growing season. Evidence included statistical significance in Before After Control Impact statistical models, differences >3% between expected and observed values of vegetation greenness, and consistent spatial patterns of anomalies in vegetation greenness relative to turbine locations and wind direction. Wakes induced both increases and decreases in vegetation greenness, which may be difficult to predict prior to construction. The magnitude of wake effects depended primarily on precipitation and to a lesser degree aridity. Wake effects did not show trends over time following construction, suggesting the changes impact vegetation greenness within a growing season, but do not accrue over years. Even small changes in vegetation greenness, similar to those found in this study, have been seen to affect higher trophic levels. Given the rapid global growth of wind energy, and the importance of vegetation condition for agriculture, grazing, wildlife, and carbon storage, understanding how wakes from wind turbines impact vegetation is essential to exploit or ameliorate these effects.

Through the North American Bat Monitoring Program, United States Geological Survey (USGS) provided technical and science support to assist in U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services’ Species Status Assessment (“SSA”) for the northern long-eared bat (Myotis septentrionalis), little brown bat (Myotis lucifugus), and tri-colored bat (Perimyotis subflavus). USGS facilitated the SSA data call, provided data archival for repeatable and transparent analyses, provided statistical support to assess the historical, current, and future population status for each of the three species, and developed a demographic projection tool to evaluate future viability of each species under multiple threat scenarios. These data represent the derived species-specific index of potential wind energy influence of each NABat grid cell ("grid cell") from 2007-2020 derived based on the U.S. Wind Turbine Database after joining turbine locations to the NABat grid and aggregating at the grid cell. This metric is summarized for each grid cell and year, and reflects both the proximity of each grid cell to all wind energy locations on the landscape (with respect to the mean dispersal distance of each species in kilometers) and also the intensity (rated capacity in megawatts) at each _location. It was derived based on the total rated wind energy capacities of grid cells, and the distances from grid cells with wind energy to all other NABat grid cells, the mean migration distance of each species, and an exponential dispersal kernel as a weighting function.

The Solar and Wind Energy Resource Assessment (SWERA) Program was a collaboration of worldwide partners with a mission to provide information on renewable energy resources for countries and regions around the world. Funding and support for the SWERA Program concluded in 2011, at which time all program data and information were transferred to OpenEI for long-term availability. The program partners, which included the U.S. Department of Energy and NREL, are no longer supporting or maintaining the data. OpenEI has archived the data and is making it publicly available for historical purposes. While the data may be useful for historical reference, it is suggested that users interested in global renewable resource data consult more recent resources. Here are a few suggested resources to get started on exploring more current and available renewable resource data: Solar - Global Solar Atlas (http://globalsolaratlas.info/) - U.S. National Solar Radiation Database (https://nsrdb.nrel.gov/data-viewer) - Renewable Energy Data Explorer (https://www.re-explorer.org/) - IRENA Global Atlas for Renewable Energy (https://globalatlas.irena.org/workspace) - NASA Surface Meteorology and Solar Energy: Global Datasets (https://power.larc.nasa.gov/) Wind - Global Wind Atlas (http://globalwindatlas.info/) - IRENA Global Atlas for Renewable Energy (https://globalatlas.irena.org/workspace) - WINDExchange: Wind Energy Maps and Data (https://windexchange.energy.gov/maps-data?height=80m) - Renewable Energy Data Explorer (https://www.re-explorer.org/) - USGS Wind Turbine Database (https://eerscmap.usgs.gov/uswtdb/viewer/) - NREL WIND Toolkit (https://www.nrel.gov/grid/wind-toolkit.html) Climate - NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (http://data.giss.nasa.gov/) - NASA Surface Meteorology and Solar Energy: Global Datasets (https://power.larc.nasa.gov/)

Variation in avian and bat mortality as a function of turbine size was investigated in the San Gorgonio Pass Wind Resource Area near Palm Springs, CA. Five sites were monitored for carcasses by dog-handler teams every 3 days from May 2018 to April 2019. The data consist of six tables used for analyses on mortality rates including: specifications on selected wind turbines (including energy capacity), carcasses found during surveys, results from search efficiency and carcass placement trials of species of different size classes.

This data release contains breeding-bird densities in native mixed-grass prairie collected from 2003 to 2012 at and adjacent to wind farms in North and South Dakota, USA, for one year prior to turbine construction and several years post-construction. One dataset contains breeding-bird densities per 100 ha by distance from turbines for categories of 0-100 m, 100-200 m, 200-300 m, and greater than 300 m from turbines and for reference (i.e., control) sites. A second dataset contains breeding-bird density overall for turbine and reference sites, without the distance-category breakdown. A third dataset contains measurements that characterize average vegetation structural measurements on each study plot. This data release supports the following manuscript: Shaffer, J.A., and D. A. Buhl. 2016. Effects of wind-energy facilities on breeding grassland bird distributions. Conservation Biology 30:59-71. doi:10.1111/cobi.12569.

Areas with high potential for utility-grade wind power were based on wind energy adjusted to 80 m and excluding protected areas and land-cover types unsuitable for wind installations (Elliot et. al. 1986, NREL 2010). Data were originally in classes, 3-7, but were assigned 1/0 values for this dataset, and then averaged to create a 10 km2 grid. See citations for details on raw data. Elliot, D. L., C. G. Holladay, W. R. Barchet, H. P. Foote, and W. F. Sandusky. 1986. Wind Energy Resource Atlas of the United States. Pacific Northwest Laboratory, prepared for the U.S. Department of Energy, Richland, Washington. NREL [National Renewable Energy Laboratory]. 2010 wind data: wind power class (exclusions applied). U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy, Golden, Colorado, USA.

Analysts from the U.S. Geological Survey and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory collaborated to develop and release the United States Large Scale Solar Photovoltaic Database (USPVDB). This effort built from the expertise gained while developing the regularly updated United States Wind Turbine Database (USWTDB). Starting from Energy Information Administration (EIA) data, locations of large-scale solar photovoltaic (LSPV) facilities were visually verified using high-resolution aerial imagery; a polygon was drawn around the extent of facility panel arrays, and facility attributes were appended. Quality assurance and control were achieved via team peer review and comparing the USPVDB to other datasets of U.S. solar photovoltaic facilities. Some facility information did not exist within our source data or not yet built, not built at all, or located elsewhere. Thus, uncertainty may exist for certain facilities and a confidence level of 1 to 4 is given for each. None of the data are field verified.

This Data Release contains data from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) survey of the Oregon outer continental shelf (OCS) Floating Wind Farm Site in 2014. The bathymetry raster was generated from bathymetry data collected by USGS during the period from August 20 to September 1, 2014, using a Reson 7111 multibeam echosounder. The mapping mission collected bathymetry data from about 163 m to 566 m depths on the Oregon outer continental shelf. The acquisition was funded by the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.