Sportin’ our colors at WINDPOWER 2008. Not a comet-worshiping cult. Not that there’s anything wrong with liking comets.
We got these custom All Stars from the Converse website. The Web has everything, right?
Sort of.
Bolivia, rich in natural gas and hydropower potential but with one of the lowest rural electrification rates in South America, will soon have its wind resources mapped at a resolution of 2 kilometers. 3TIER recently was engaged by the IFC (part of the World Bank Group) to develop the Bolivia map, which should be released later this year. The project complements our REmapping the World initiative by accelerating the delivery of reliable information about available wind resources. Like the 5-kilometer-resolution Mexico map we released yesterday, the Bolivia map will be viewable for free online via FirstLook.
Today at WINDPOWER, 3TIER announced the online release of a 5-kilometer-resolution wind map of Mexico. If you’re in Houston, visit us at booth 1253 for a North American wind poster. Like the online map, the poster is free.
If you’re not in Houston, you can check out the 5 km Mexico wind map on our FirstLook site. This release is part of our REmapping the World project, which provides free, accurate information on renewable energy resources. The 15 km world wind map was released in March 2008; now we’re steadily producing maps of the globe at higher resolutions, country by country.
Stay tuned: We’ll be making more announcements from Houston this week.
Now that you’ve got the 411 on our assessments, you’re probably wondering how that’s different from forecasting, the other thing on which we spend a lot of time and computing power.
In short, an assessment analyzes lots of past data to tell you what the weather was like, whereas a forecast tells you what the weather will be like. “Assessment is ‘hindcasting,’” Scott Eichelberger says. Which means forecasting is … well, you know what it is. Scott didn’t give me a pithy one-liner for forecasting.
Who uses our assessments? Developers who are prospecting for sites for new installations, financiers wanting to know the power-producing potential of a site, and builders who want weather data to help guide which equipment and technology they use. FirstLook assessments are available for wind and solar, whereas the more detailed FullView assessments cover wind.
Who wants forecasts? Usually, energy site and utilities operators who need to plan which sources of power they will call upon in order to ensure a steady supply to the grid. We currently forecast for wind and hydro. I’ll cover forecasting in much more detail in upcoming posts.
The title of this post is an old maxim for writers, a reminder that an example is much more compelling to readers than a factoid.
Fact: Despite turbine shortages, installed wind energy in 2007 far outpaced projections, according to the Worldwatch Institute’s Vital Sign Update (password required, so here’s a summary). The United States added 5,244 megawatts, bringing our total wind capacity to 16,818 megawatts – second to the world leader in wind, Germany.
Example: Much as I would love to travel America to chronicle the growth of wind power (Wait. Can I do that? Is there funding? Call me!), for now we’ll be content to look at some news from a locality affected by the wind power boom. (more…)
If, like me, you think extracting the bitumen from the Alberta tar sands for oil is an object lesson in unsustainability, you’ll be glad to know that 3TIER has added Canada to the FirstLook 5 kilometer-resolution wind map portfolio.
The Canadian Wind Energy Association reports:
In the past few years, wind energy production in Canada has grown to 1,856 MW. While this is encouraging, Canada still has vast untapped wind resources available. In fact, there is the potential in Canada for wind energy to meet a full 20% of all our electricity needs.
3TIER wind maps are now available for Alaska, too. The Alaska Energy Authority “lends out” met towers and data collecting equipment to communities that want to find out if they have the potential for municipal wind projects. I applaud Alaska, a state so rich in oil that its denizens get a divided check each year, for its commitment to renewable energy.
Some other states, like Ohio and Texas, have met tower loaner programs. Have any readers made use of them?
