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Wind power is one of the fastest-growing sources of energy around the world. It is popular because it is abundant and provides many communities with a clean, local source of electricity, as opposed to imported fossil fuels. Globally, about 80 countries use wind power on a commercial basis.  But most developing countries lack the technology to accurately measure the strength and frequency of wind speed, a necessity for deploying wind energy. Best Practice Guidelines for Meso Scale Wind Mapping Projects, a new report financed by the Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP) offers practical advice to energy practitioners, policy planners and potential wind developers on how to assess and utilize a wind measurement tool called  Meso Scale Wind Mapping Model. 

At the end of 2009, worldwide capacity of wind-powered generators was 159 gigawatts. Energy production was 340 terawatts, which is about two percent of worldwide electricity usage, which has doubled in the past three years. Several countries have achieved relatively high levels of wind power penetration with large governmental subsidies. The United States produces the most wind power, and it is estimated that wind power could account for 20 percent of the nation's electricity supply by 2030.

The ESMAP report recommends Meso scale wind mapping, a model which is increasingly used across the world to obtain a preliminary  mapping of likely locations for commercially exploitable wind resources in a country.  In this model, wind mapping is based on data from earth observation satellites, historical reanalysis data – this is an analysis that follows an earlier successful piece of analytical work, and global meteorology models. Meso scale wind models generate huge simulated datasets of hourly wind speeds and wind directions for each grid point at multiple heights.

Cindy Suh, Program Team Leader of ESMAP’s Renewable Energy Market Transformation Initiative -REMTI said, “This report provides a set of best practice guidelines for procuring Meso scale wind maps.  It explains the basics of a Meso scale wind map, its use and limitation. It also outlines tips for assessing the quality and usability of products supplied by Meso scale modeling distributors to ease the deployment of wind powered electricity in developing countries.”

The data produced by utilizing the Meso Scale Wind Mapping Model are useful in guiding energy policy and spatial planning, and for indicating fruitful areas for additional exploration for wind resources using ground-based wind measurement.  The findings of this study are being shared with developing country governments and private sector stakeholders. 

This report is a result of extensive work within the World Bank and ESMAP on Meso scale wind modeling which started in 2006.   The report incorporates comments from discussions with a number of academic researchers, modelers, bankers, and practical users of Meso scale maps over a number of years.

The main author of this report is Soren Krohn, Email: sk@skpower.net.