An assessment of the available windy land area and wind energy potential in the contiguous United States

Elliott, D.; Wendell, L.L.; Gower, G.L.

doi:10.2172/5252760

Cited by 63 publications

(40 citation statements)

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“…The remainder of the US contains widespread areas of wind power density that corresponds to the 'poor' class (Class 1). Thus the wind resource estimation using the MERRA dataset is qualitatively similar to the wind resource at 50 m estimated by Elliott et al (1987Elliott et al ( , 1991 for NREL.…”

Section: Comparison With Nrel Map At 50 Msupporting

confidence: 80%

“…The US national wind energy resource estimates were developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) (Elliott et al, 1987(Elliott et al, , 1991 and the wind resource was remapped at a higher resolution for the midwestern US (Schwartz and Elliot, 2001). Several data sources were used to collect the wind data.…”

Section: Characterization Of Wind Resourcementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The US wind atlas developed by NREL (Elliott et al, 1987(Elliott et al, , 1991) used a power law for wind speed or wind power density of the form:…”

Section: Resource Metricsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Conventionally, WPD is used as the physical quantity to describe the wind energy potential or the wind resource at a place. The US wind atlas (Elliott et al, 1987(Elliott et al, , 1991, for instance, maps the mean WPD over the contiguous states of the US To describe the quality of wind resource, it is proposed that more metrics of location and dispersion be taken into account. So, the median as another measure of location has been computed.…”

Section: Resource Metricsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Characterization of wind power resource in the United States

Gunturu

Schlosser

2012

Atmos. Chem. Phys.

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Abstract. Wind resource in the continental and offshore United States has been reconstructed and characterized using metrics that describe, apart from abundance, its availability, persistence and intermittency. The Modern Era Retrospective-Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA) boundary layer flux data has been used to construct wind profile at 50 m, 80 m, 100 m, 120 m turbine hub heights. The wind power density (WPD) estimates at 50 m are qualitatively similar to those in the US wind atlas developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), but quantitatively a class less in some regions, but are within the limits of uncertainty. The wind speeds at 80 m were quantitatively and qualitatively close to the NREL wind map. The possible reasons for overestimation by NREL have been discussed. For long tailed distributions like those of the WPD, the mean is an overestimation and median is suggested for summary representation of the wind resource.The impact of raising the wind turbine hub height on metrics of abundance, persistence, variability and intermittency is analyzed. There is a general increase in availability and abundance of wind resource but there is an increase in intermittency in terms of level crossing rate in low resource regions.

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Section: Comparison With Nrel Map At 50 Msupporting

confidence: 80%

Section: Characterization Of Wind Resourcementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The US wind atlas developed by NREL (Elliott et al, 1987(Elliott et al, , 1991) used a power law for wind speed or wind power density of the form:…”

Section: Resource Metricsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Resource Metricsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Characterization of wind power resource in the United States

Gunturu

Schlosser

2012

Atmos. Chem. Phys.

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“…Wind energy potential has been systematically studied in the U.S. (Elliott and Schwartz, 1993;Elliot et al, 1987). Here, wind potential is measured by the sum of land (in km 2 ) subject to all classes of wind, with environmental exclusions and moderate land use exclusions.…”

Section: Wind Potentialmentioning

confidence: 99%

U.S. state policies for renewable energy: Context and effectiveness

Delmas¹,

2011

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a b s t r a c tOver the past decade, state policies on renewable energy have been on the rise in the U.S., providing states with various options for encouraging the generation of renewable electricity. Two promising policies, the Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) and the Mandatory Green Power Option (MGPO), have been implemented in many states but the evidence about their effectiveness is mixed. In this paper, we argue that recognizing the natural, social, and policy context under which MGPO and RPS are adopted is necessary in order to measure their true effectiveness. This is because the context rather than the policy might lead to positive outcomes and there is the possibility for sample bias. When controlling for the context in which the policies are implemented, we find that RPS has a negative impact on investments in renewable capacity. However, we find that investor owned utilities seem to respond more positively to RPS mandates than publicly owned utilities. By contrast, MGPO appears to have a significant effect on installed renewable capacity for all utilities regardless of the context in which it is implemented. IntroductionAddressing climate change has become an important priority for the U.S. administration. In the U.S., greenhouse gas emissions come primarily from the combustion of fossil fuels in energy use. Energy related carbon dioxide emissions, resulting from the combustion of petroleum, coal, and natural gas, represented 82% of total U.S. anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions in 2006. 1 While the U.S. generates 3% of its electricity from renewable resources, 2 other developed countries such as Denmark, Germany, Spain, and New Zealand generate 25%, 20%, 16%, and 8% of their electricity from renewables, respectively. 3 In addition, all of the European Union member states have aggressive renewable energy percentages they plan to reach by 2020, while the U.S. has no federally defined targets for renewable generation. 4 While there are current debates about the implementation of a federal renewable policy, U.S. states have taken a leading role in establishing renewable energy policies since the late 1990s. These include Renewable Portfolio Standards, the requirement to sell green products, disclosure policies, and subsidies. Analyzing the effectiveness of state renewable policies can be helpful to inform the current policy debate at the federal level.Recent research has started to look at the effectiveness of state policies on the generation of renewable electricity but has found mixed results. While some studies have found positive results (Bird et al., 2005;Menz and Vachon, 2006;Zarnikau, 2003;Yin and Powers, 2010), others have found no significant results (Carley, 2009).Furthermore, most of these studies provide little information on the natural and institutional conditions under which state renewable policies are adopted, which could have an impact on their effectiveness. For example, the relationship between installed renewable capacity and a state's resource endowment (e.g., sun, biomass...

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Wind Power Systems

Masters

2004

Renewable and Efficient Electric Power Systems

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Wind has been utilized as a source of power for thousands of years for such tasks as propelling sailing ships, grinding grain, pumping water, and powering factory machinery. The world's first wind turbine used to generate electricity was built by a Dane, Poul la Cour, in 1891. It is especially interesting to note that La Cour used the electricity generated by his turbines to electrolyze water, producing hydrogen for gas lights in the local schoolhouse. In that regard we could say that he was 100 years ahead of his time since the vision that many have for the twenty-first century includes photovoltaic and wind power systems making hydrogen by electrolysis to generate electric power in fuel cells.In the United States the first wind-electric systems were built in the late 1890s; by the 1930s and 1940s, hundreds of thousands of small-capacity, windelectric systems were in use in rural areas not yet served by the electricity grid. In 1941 one of the largest wind-powered systems ever built went into operation at Grandpa's Knob in Vermont. Designed to produce 1250 kW from a 175-ft-diameter, two-bladed prop, the unit had withstood winds as high as 115 miles per hour before it catastrophically failed in 1945 in a modest 25mph wind (one of its 8-ton blades broke loose and was hurled 750 feet away).

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An assessment of the available windy land area and wind energy potential in the contiguous United States

Cited by 63 publications

References 0 publications

Characterization of wind power resource in the United States

Characterization of wind power resource in the United States

U.S. state policies for renewable energy: Context and effectiveness

Wind Power Systems

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