News
Announcing windNavigator
June 01, 2008
AWS Truewind, LLC, announces the launch of its web-based wind prospecting application windNavigator™. A state-of-the-art interactive tool based on the popular GoogleMaps®, windNavigator allows for the convenient exploration and purchase via the internet of highly accurate and detailed wind resource maps and data for the conterminous United States.
“For over a decade AWS Truewind has been the leader in the science and application of wind mapping for all types of wind climates worldwide,” according to AWS Truewind President/CEO Bruce Bailey. “Our emphasis on high-resolution modeling and extensive validation has resulted in products that energy developers and government planners rely upon for siting projects and assessing development potential.”
“We’ve now taken the step of making our mapping products more accessible to support the accelerating expansion of wind power,” Dr. Bailey adds.
The maps delivered through windNavigator were created by AWS Truewind’s MesoMap® system, well known in the wind industry as the technology behind ground-breaking wind maps published over the past decade for over 30 US states as well as many other countries.
But, as AWS Truewind Chief Technical Officer Michael Brower explains, “these are not the same maps the public has seen before. In creating windNavigator, we applied a sophisticated error-correction procedure using data from over 1000 wind-monitoring towers across the country.”
“As a result,” says Dr. Brower, “the new maps achieve an unprecedented level of accuracy.”
In addition, unlike previously published maps, windNavigator covers all the lower 48 states. Alaska and Hawaii will follow soon, along with other countries.
“The ultimate objective is to map regions with high wind project development potential throughout the world with the same degree of accuracy and detail our clients have come to expect of us here at home,” says AWS Truewind Product Development Manager Staci Clark, who led the windNavigator development team.
windNavigator provides flexible purchasing options geared toward diverse end users and various phases of project development. For preliminary prospecting, PDF maps at one of three hub heights provide a fast and easy way to better understand the wind resource across a defined area. For users looking to dig deeper, the GIS data set is an interactive option that allows for view customization, incorporation of other data layers (e.g. land parcels), and printable maps at any scale. The GIS data set also includes a gross capacity factor layer at 80 m based on a generic megawatt-class turbine, as well as high resolution DEM (digital elevation model) and land cover data. With this comprehensive information, AWS Truewind believes project developers will be well equipped to begin charting their course to project realization.
Key features of windNavigator include:
- Convenience: Online access available anytime, anywhere; all the user needs is an internet connection.
- Accuracy: Objectively determined standard error margin of 0.35 m/s for the mean speed at 80 m.
- Reliability: Wind resource data from MesoMap®, the most widely tested and validated wind mapping system in use today.
- Detail: High-resolution wind information at a refined grid scale of 200 m, plus multiple heights above ground. Terrain and demographic data available, too.
- Customization: Project-scale maps and GIS data provide a clear picture of the wind resource and its spatial variability over an area of the user’s choosing.