Analysis Data

Wind Energy Analysis Data - Resource Assessment Data

The table below lists many of the locations in Alaska with publicly available wind resource data. Some of the data was collected from a meteorological (met) tower while other data sets are from airport weather stations managed by the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC).

A note on met tower data: Each met tower data set includes a Wind Data Report (pdf), the raw 10-minute data that was collected, and the processed data set. The processed data has been checked for quality control, scaled to long-term trends, and averaged into hourly values. Both the raw and processed data are tab-delimited text files which can be imported into an Excel spreadsheet or other software for further data analysis and manipulation.

A note on NCDC data: The NCDC sites have a Station Summary Report (pdf) with photos and graphs and a Long-Term Data file with summary tables of weather data (text file.) Some may also have a more detailed wind data report. Projects that have been proven feasible may also include a Conceptual Design Report elaborating on the proposed system for each project. Wind maps are also provided for many of the stations listed showing the average wind speed and primary direction throughout each region.

A note on processing and interpreting the data and graphs: For background on how to interpret the data and graphs, please read the Introduction to Wind Resource Data and Data Processing Procedures and Definitions.

For guidelines on how to submit a Conceptual Design Report, please read Guidelines for Conceptual Design Reports.

Disclaimer on reports: Some of the reports posted on this page contain wind power production and diesel displacement estimates. These estimates could differ substantially from observed production from an installed system. There are many hard-to-predict factors that can reduce the amount of wind power that is delivered to the customer. Some of the factors that need to be considered on a project by project basis include the following: turbine downtime, blade icing and/or soiling, transformer/line losses, turbine array losses, extreme weather events, and wind power integration design.