Recent Wind Resource Characterization Activities at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory

The wind resource characterization team at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) is working to improve the characterization of the wind resource in many key regions of the world. This work is especially important because the wind energy market is rapidly being transformed both in the United States and abroad. Wind characterization activities will help optimize wind measurement programs,enhance the development of wind energy, and lead to more opportunities for the domestic wind energy industry. Personnel who have had extensive experience in wind resource assessment lead the wind resource activity. The current expertise of the group is primarily in meteorology, wind climatology, computer mapping using ARC/INFO Geographic Information System, software development using FORTRAN, C,and PERL programming, and management of large data bases. The computer equipment used for wind resource assessment activities includes personal computers and advanced UNIX-based operating systems on Sun Workstations.