A new tool to help map the world’s wind energy potential has been launched.
The World Bank and the Technical University of Denmark’s (DTU) ‘Global Wind Atlas’ aims to help policymakers and investors identify promising areas for wind power generation, anywhere across the globe.
The Bank expects the tool to help governments save “millions of dollars” by avoiding the need for early-stage, national level wind mapping.
It also allows commercial developers to compare resource potential between areas in one region or across countries.
The free tool is based on the latest modelling technologies, which combine wind climate data with terrain information – factors that can influence the wind, such as hills or valleys – and provides wind climate data at a 1km scale.
Riccardo Puliti, Senior Director and Head of the World Bank’s Energy & Extractives Global Practice said: “There is great scope in many countries for the clean-low cost power that wind provides but they have been hampered by a lack of good data.
“By providing high quality resource data at such as detailed level for free, we hope to mobilise more private investment for accelerating the scale-up of technologies like wind to meet urgent energy needs.”
The Global Solar Atlas was launched earlier this year.