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Wind Data

The available datasets are 50-meter hub height state-level and regional coverages. Please note that a 50-meter height national coverage is not available. We do not have high resolution land-based data for Alabama, Florida, Louisiana or Mississippi. If you have questions, please contact the Geospatial Data Science Team.

State and national wind resource data at various hub heights and spatial resolutions for both land-based and offshore data including the data used in the maps located at the WINDExchange and U.S. DOE EERE websites can be purchased from AWS TruePower.

Wind data is also available from other commercial sources such as 3Tier. Note: Listing other commercial companies does not imply endorsement by NREL.

50-meter height above ground/surface

These datasets are geographic shapefiles generated from the original raster data. The original raster data varied in resolution from 200-meter to 1000-meter cell sizes. The data provide an estimate of annual average wind resource for specific states or regions. The data are separated into two distinct groups: NREL produced, and AWS Truepower produced/NREL validated. To learn more, please see Wind Data Details.

The NREL-produced map data only applies to areas of low surface roughness (i.e. grassy plains), and excludes areas with slopes greater than 20%. For areas of high surface roughness (i.e. forests), the values shown may need to be reduced by one or more power classes. The TrueWind-produced resource estimates factor in surface roughness in their calculations, and do not exclude areas with slopes greater than 20%. These data were produced in cooperation with U.S. Department of Energy's WINDExchange program, and have been validated by NREL and other wind energy meteorological consultants. To download state wind resource maps, visit the WINDExchange Web site.

Geographic coordinate system name: GCS_WGS_1984

For these datasets, we've included the option to view the data in Google Earth. To launch this capability, click on the kmz link in the KMZ Files field. Other KMZ links are available through our MapSearch Tool.

50-Meter Legend

Sample graphic to use for 50-m wind maps (JPG 46.5 KB)

90-Meter Offshore (90-meter height above surface)

Annual average offshore wind speed at a 90-meter height. To learn more, please see Offshore Wind Report (2010).

Geographic coordinate system name: GCS_WGS_1984

For these five datasets, we've included the option to view the data in Google Earth. To launch this capability, click on the kmz link in the KMZ Files field. Other KMZ links are available through our MapSearch Tool.

Note - These zipped shapefile datasets are designed to be used in GIS software applications.

Western Wind Dataset

The Western Wind Dataset provides energy professionals with a consistent set of wind profiles across the western United States. This dataset provides 10-minute time-series wind data for 2004, 2005 and 2006. More than 30,000 data points are available across the western United States.

Eastern Wind Dataset

The Eastern Wind Dataset provides energy professionals with a consistent set of wind profiles for the eastern United States. This dataset provides 10-minute time-series wind data for 2004, 2005, and 2006. More than 1,326 simulated wind farms data points are available across the eastern United States.

NREL's National Wind Technology Center (NWTC) tower data

The NWTC tower data site provides links to live graphical displays and wind data from the tower located at the NWTC.

More Information

For more information on wind resources, access the resource maps page on the Wind Resource Assessment site.

For additional wind resource data, access Renewable Resource Data Center (RReDC) and the Wind Resource Data.

If you have difficulty accessing this data because of a disability, please contact the Geospatial Data Science Team.

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