Wind energy and wind farm development is big business, and this is only the beginning! Today, less than 1% of our energy comes from wind energy. 

President Bush and the U.S. government are calling for 20% of our nation's energy to come from wind energy by 2020. 

Hundred of billions of dollars will be invested and made in wind energy!  

Now is the time to get in on the ground floor of the wind energy and wind farm development business!  

Look at the following facts about wind energy, according to the American Wind Energy Association (www.awea.org):

• The U.S. added nearly 1,400 megawatts of new wind energy capacity during the second quarter of 2008.
  

• New wind turbines this year will generate 7,500 megawatts of additional electricity which surpasses the 5,249 megawatts installed in 2007.
  

• Wind power accounted for more than one-third of the new electric generating capacity installed in the U.S. in 2007.
  

• The wind industry is projected to grow at a 45 percent pace for the second straight year.
  

• For every megawatt (MW) of wind energy produced, $1 million in economic development is generated. This includes revenue from planning, construction, etc. 
  

• Wind energy revitalizes rural communities by providing steady income through lease and royalty payments to farmers and other landowners.
  

• Supplemental income: It is estimated that the income to a landowner from a single utility-scale turbine is approximately $2000 per year. For a 250-acre farm with income from wind at $55 per acre, this translates into an annual income from wind leases of $14,000, with no more than 2-3 acres removed from production.

Wind Resource Assessment

All markets for wind turbines require an estimate of how much wind energy is available at potential development sites. Correct estimation of the energy available in the wind can make or break the economics of wind farm development. Wind maps developed in the late '70s and early '80s provided reasonable estimates of areas in which good wind resources could be found. But new tools and new data available from satellites and new sensing devices now allow researchers to create even more accurate and detailed wind maps of the world.

Wind mapping techniques developed by the National Renewable Energy Lab ("NREL") and U.S. companies are being used to produce high-resolution projections of U.S. and foreign regions that are painting a whole new picture of wind potential. These maps are created using highly accurate GPS mapping tools and a vast array of satellite, weather balloon, and meteorological tower data, combined with much-improved numerical computer models. The higher horizontal resolution of these maps (1 km or finer) allows for more accurate wind turbine siting and has also led to the recognition of higher-class winds in areas where none were thought to exist.

The ability to accurately predict when the wind will blow will help remove barriers to wind energy development by allowing wind-power-generating facilities to commit to power purchases in advance. NREL researchers work with federal, state, and private organizations to validate the nation's wind resources and support advances in wind forecasting techniques and dissemination. Wind resource validation is important for both wind resource assessment and the integration of wind farms into an energy grid. Validating new, high-resolution wind resource maps will provide an accurate reading of the wind resource at a particular site. Development of short-term (1 to 4 hours) forecasting tools will help energy producers proceed with new wind farm projects and avoid the penalties they must pay if they do not meet their hourly generation targets. In addition, validating new high-resolution wind resource maps will give people interested in developing wind energy projects greater confidence as to the level of wind resource for a particular site.