OVERVIEW OF A WIND RESOURCE ASSESSMENT CAMPAIGN - Wind Resource Assessment: A Practical Guide to Developing a Wind Project - page 14

Wind resource
assessment

Financing
/Due Diligence

Operation and
decommissioning

Permitting Construction

Performance
testing

Site identification Location Permits Site preparation

Turbine
installation

Plant
operation

Preliminary
assessment

Project
design

Installed capacity

Micrositing/
energy estimates

Energy
estimates

Connection/
commissioning

Project removal/
repowering

Ownership

Figure 2-1. The life cycle of a utility-scale wind energy project. Source: AWS Truepower.

2.1 SITE IDENTIFICATION

The first stage of the wind resource assessment campaign identifies one or more
candidate wind energy project sites. This may involve surveying a relatively large
region (e.g., a county, province or state, or country). A leading consideration is usually
the wind resource, which may be estimated using wind maps and publicly available
wind data. Other considerations may include market conditions, transmission access
and capacity, site constructability and access, community and government support,
and environmental and cultural sensitivities. Site-screening techniques and criteria are
described in Chapter 3.
As a first step, it is recommended that geographic data be collected and compiled in
a Geographic Information System (GIS). Once a GIS project has been created, appro-
priate criteria can be applied to select candidate sites in an efficient and systematic
way. Another advantage of creating a GIS is that once a candidate site is selected,
much of the wind monitoring campaign design and, subsequently, the wind project
design can be carried out in a virtual environment.
Whether a GIS is used or not, the final site selection should be informed by site
visits to confirm the physical conditions on which the selection was based (such as
the condition of roads and locations of transmission lines) and to assess firsthand the
political, regulatory, cultural, and other factors that may help or hinder development.

2.2 RESOURCE MONITORING

Once a candidate site is identified, the second stage involves the measurement and
characterization of the wind resource. It is at this stage that wind monitoring towers are
likely to be installed. The most common objectives of the monitoring are as follows:

• To verify whether a sufficient wind resource exists to justify further investigation.
• To compare and rank the wind resources between different candidate sites.
• To obtain representative data for estimating the performance and economic via-
bility of different wind turbine models.
• To provide a sound basis for wind resource analysis.