GIS FOR RENEWABLE ENERGY 33 Kyushu University: A model of a baseball stadium in Japan, showing the airflow around the stadium. This was created with ArcView, ArcGIS 3D Analyst, and Airflow Analyst. Cascade County— Attracting Renewable Investors In the U.S. state of Montana, along the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains, sits Cascade County, a region known for its powerful Chinook winds. Cascade County Commissioner Peggy Beltrone, who also serves on the U.S. Department of Energy’s Wind Powering America steering committee, is leading a wind marketing program for the county that is receiving attention around the globe. “The way to differentiate the wind that crosses through your county and the next county is to draw attention to it and make it easier for developers to explore your wind resource and see its value,” Beltrone says. Cascade County is using GIS to help wind power developers research available parcels. In addition to attention from regional developers, interest has come from businesspeople as far away as Japan and Ireland. “We have a lot of people coming into our office looking for data on wind,” says Tom Mital, GIS manager for Cascade County. To better serve these interested parties, Mital used ArcGIS Desktop software to create a wind map book that combines wind, transmission, parcel, and road data. The wind speed estimates for an elevation of 50 meters above the ground were produced by TrueWind Solutions using its Mesomap system and historical weather data. The data was then validated with surface data from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and wind energy meteorological consultants. A PDF version of the map book is available on the GIS Department Web page of the county Web site at www.co.cascade.mt.us. On that Web page, there are also links to a wind power map and wind speed map that visitors can download in PDF format. If someone would like more detail about a specific area, Mital will create a custom map. “The advantage of using GIS in the marketing of your wind is that it gives developers a lot of information that they need to decide whether or not placing a wind turbine in this area is going to work for their power needs and their budgets,” Beltrone says. “One executive told me that the information we provided saved his staff months of work since we did all the work for them. If he can take a look at our resources without having to invest time and money into preliminary research, it’s a big draw.” For more information, contact commissioner Peggy Beltrone (e-mail: pbeltrone@co.cascade. mt.us, Web: www.cascadecountywind.com). BirkNielsen Sweco Architects— Environmental Impact Assessment Dotting the landscape with wind turbines can adversely affect the environment and cause the community to take umbrage. To ward off such risks, developers enlist the help of people such as Christian Achermann, an urban designer from BirkNielsen Sweco Architects A/S in Denmark, to create an environmental impact assessment (EIA). “An environmental impact assessment,” Achermann says, “should identify, describe, and assess the direct and indirect effect on humans, fauna, flora, soil, water, air, climate, landscape, material assets, cultural heritage, and the interaction between those elements.” For projects with large wind turbines, Achermann says it is especially important to investigate the visual and landscape impact. A visual analysis addresses issues surrounding wind turbine design, size, style, and patterns from a landscape architecture perspective. For example, when a private builder wants to install wind turbines at a specific site, local politicians and community members need more information to handle the request. They need to know which transportation routes will be traveled by trucks accessing the site, how the site will be restored when or if the turbines are no longer useful, and what changes the area will undergo on account of the wind power facility. An EIA gives them something concrete to discuss. “If you do not have a fairly accurate picture of how it will look, it becomes pure guesswork,” Achermann says. “We use GIS to translate guesswork into something quite specific, and on this BirkNielsen: The visibility of proposed wind turbines is displayed. From the white areas, you will not be able to see the wind turbines. basis we can make an assessment as landscape architects.” Achermann and his team use ArcGIS software to create thematic maps with up to 30 layers of relevant data. The maps are shared with interested parties online. The use of GIS-based maps allows politicians and the community at large to understand and visualize the ramifications of a nearby wind facility. For more information, contact Christian Achermann, urban designer, BirkNielsen Sweco Architects A/S (e-mail: christian.achermann@ birknielsen.dk). U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory— Economic and Government Considerations The U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) recently took on the task of updating wind resource maps to educate government decision makers and developers interested in regional renewable energy. Using ArcGIS Desktop software, the NREL team is able to determine the most favorable locations for wind farms based on the cost of transmission, locations of load centers and wind resources, and the layout of the electric grid. GIS-based modeling enables analysis of terrain, which significantly impacts the quality of wind at a particular site. The NREL team also examines economic development potential based on strong manufacturing centers and filters the data to exclude sites such as national parks and wilderness areas. For utility developers, NREL creates forecasting models. Maps include details such as voltage of transmission lines and classes of wind speed and wind power. Forecasts include projected wind capacity by state in 2030 and the expansion of transmission lines that would be required. For more information, contact Marguerite Kelly, senior project manager, NREL (e-mail: marguerite.kelly@nrel.gov). Renewable Generation Location Summary As shown in the above examples, the identification of a renewable generation location consists of several common steps: Locate geographic areas that are suitable from a purely technical consideration. Name any factors that would prohibit construction, such as environmentally or culturally sensitive lands. Take into account proximity to the transmission grid to avoid the need for new lines. To make these processes most efficient, GIS can collect and view each group of data for consideration. More Information For more information, visit www.esri.com/ electric. Horseshoe Bend Wind Farm in Cascade County, Montana (source: John Godwin). NREL: South Dakota’s wind resource map depicts an outstanding resource. Transmission lines with voltages can also be seen on this map.