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Data Resources
NREL's Geographic Information System (GIS) team develops technology-specific GIS data maps for a variety of areas, as well as targeted analysis tools that can help determine availability of renewable energy resources.
Geographic Information System Data
NREL's GIS Team develops technology-specific GIS data maps for a variety of areas, including biomass, geothermal, solar, wind, and renewable hydrogen. The team has made some of our datasets available for download through this Web site. 10km and 40km solar datasets are available for the United States and some international sites. 50m wind datasets are available for specific states, regions and some international sites. 25km wind datasets are available for the United States. 90m offshore wind datasets are available for the United States offshore areas. Note: These datasets are designed to be used in GIS software applications.
For information on how the biomass, solar and wind datasets were developed, access the GIS Data Background page.
Typical Research Datasets Used in Analysis
GIS Datasets
The list below is a sample of some of the types of data NREL's GIS team uses for their analysis. While some of the datasets listed are licensed and we are unable to distribute them, we have made most of our resource data available to the public. Go to the specific technology list on the left side navigation of this website to see which data sets are currently available.
- Boundary Files
- Political
- Infrastructure/Utility
- Federal Lands
- Parks
- Census Data
- Infrastructure
- Natural Geographic Features
- Renewable Energy Resources
- Potential carbon sequestration areas
- Biomass
- Geothermal
- Hydrogen
- Ethanol
- Solar
- Wind
For a more comprehensive list of datasets used at NREL, please see NREL-GIS Datasets Specific to the United States.
To find other non-NREL GIS and non-spatial data that are available, please look to our sister-site, OpenEI.