Meteorological and topographical indicators of wind energy for regional assessments

Techniques using meteorological and topographical indicators of wind energy, developed by PNL and applied to the Northwest wind resource assessment, improved the reliability of the analysis of the geographical distribution of wind energy. The identification and application of these indicators led to an improved understanding of the conditions associated with high and low wind energy. Furthermore, these indicators are especially useful in complex terrain and wind-data-sparse areas for obtaining a somewhat realistic estimate of the wind energy resource.