Assessing the Wind Energy Potential in Bangladesh: Enabling Wind Energy Development with Data Products

Assessing the Wind Energy Potential in Bangladesh -- Enabling Wind Energy Development with Data Products (2018); Authors, Mark Jacobson (NREL), Caroline Draxl (NREL), and Tony Jimenez (NREL); Taj Capozzola (Harness Energy); and Jared A. Lee (NCAR), Francois Vandenberghe (NCAR), and Sue Ellen Haupt (NCAR). The purpose of this report is to detail the approaches and methodologies of a high-quality wind resource assessment including the measurement campaign, weather research forecasting (WRF) modeling and types of data products available. A detailed discussion of the methodologies applied, instrumentation specified, meteorological station siting criteria, commissioning reports and data-collection quality-control techniques used are included to set the stage for the reader to understand all the required steps taken to achieve accurate results. The national wind resource assessment collected data across a wide geographic area including coastal and inland regions of the country of Bangladesh. This data validated the national wind resource model and all data is published in an open and freely available format (i.e. https://www.re-explorer.org/). This approach of using a multi-year data-collection campaign (one to three and half years) to inform the model improves the accuracy of the results. The report also summarizes the Renewable Energy Data Explorer which is a GIS-based tool developed to graphically represent the data for varied audiences to ensure usability and accessibility to the public.