Updated Wind Energy Resource Assessment of the United States

摘要

An updated assessment of the wind energy resource throughout the United States and its territories was recently completed by the Pacific Northwest Laboratory. The results of this assessment are described in a comprehensive document, Wind Energy Resource Atlas of the United States (Elliott et al., 1986), published by the Solar Energy Research Institute. The atlas, includes over 100 maps (30 in color) and lists wind resource statistics for over 1000 locations. The distribution of the wind energy resource is depicted both on a national scale and in greater detail for each state or territory. This atlas should be especially useful to wind energy developers and potential wind energy users because it provides the most up-to-date assessment of the national wind energy resource available. The updated assessment synthesizes the results of twelve regional assessments completed in 1980 and incorporates information from hundreds of new measurement sites installed in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Most of the data used in the earlier assessments were from conventional locations, such as airports and military bases; most of the new site data were from well-exposed locations more representative of potential wind turbine sites. After these new site data were analyzed, the annual and seasonal average wind energy resource estimates, the uncertainty ratings (degree of confidence credited to the resource estimates), and areal distributions (percent land area having a specified wind resource) were revised over many areas of the United States. This paper describes the results of the updated wind energy assessment and highlights some of the major wind resource areas in the contiguous United States. (ERA citation 11:053843)