The
site suitability criteria included in the techno-economic land use screens are
listed below. As this list is an update to previous cycles, tribal lands, prime
farmland, and flood zones are not included as they are not technically
infeasible for development. The techno-economic site suitability exclusion
thresholds are presented in table 1. Distances indicate the minimum distance
from each feature for commercial scale wind development
Attributes:
- Steeply sloped areas: change in vertical elevation compared to horizontal distance
- Population density: the number of people living in a 1 km2 area
- Urban areas: defined by the U.S. Census.
- Water bodies: defined by the U.S. National Atlas Water Feature Areas, available from Argonne National Lab Energy Zone Mapping Tool
- Railways: a comprehensive database of North America's railway system from the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), available from Argonne National Lab Energy Zone Mapping Tool
- Major highways: available from ESRI Living Atlas
- Airports: The Airports dataset including other aviation facilities as of July 13, 2018 is part of the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT)/Bureau of Transportation Statistics's (BTS's) National Transportation Atlas Database (NTAD). The Airports database is a geographic point database of aircraft landing facilities in the United States and U.S. Territories. Attribute data is provided on the physical and operational characteristics of the landing facility, current usage including enplanements and aircraft operations, congestion levels and usage categories. This geospatial data is derived from the FAA's National Airspace System Resource Aeronautical Data Product. Available from Argonne National Lab Energy Zone Mapping Tool
- Active mines: Active Mines and Mineral Processing Plants in the United States in 2003
- Military Lands: Land owned by the federal government that is part of a US military base, camp, post, station, yard, center, or installation.
Table
1
Wind
Steeply sloped areas
>10o
Population density
>100/km2
Capacity
factor
<20%
Urban areas
<1000 m
Water bodies
<250 m
Railways
<250 m
Major
highways
<125 m
Airports
<5000 m
Active mines
<1000 m
Military Lands
<3000m
For more information about the
processes and sources used to develop the screening criteria see sources 1-7 in
the footnotes.
Data updates occur as needed, corresponding to typical
3-year CPUC IRP planning cycles
Footnotes:
[1] Lopez,
A. et. al. “U.S. Renewable Energy Technical Potentials: A GIS-Based Analysis,”
2012.
https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy12osti/51946.pdf
[2]
https://greeningthegrid.org/Renewable-Energy-Zones-Toolkit/topics/social-environmental-and-other-impacts#ReadingListAndCaseStudies
[3]
Multi-Criteria Analysis for Renewable
Energy (MapRE), University of California Santa Barbara. https://mapre.es.ucsb.edu/
[4] Larson,
E. et. al. “Net-Zero America: Potential Pathways, Infrastructure, and Impacts,
Interim Report.” Princeton University, 2020.
https://environmenthalfcentury.princeton.edu/sites/g/files/toruqf331/files/2020-12/Princeton_NZA_Interim_Report_15_Dec_2020_FINAL.pdf.
[5] Wu, G. et. al. “Low-Impact Land Use Pathways to Deep
Decarbonization of Electricity.”
Environmental Research Letters 15, no.
7 (July 10, 2020).
https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab87d1.
[6] RETI Coordinating Committee, RETI Stakeholder Steering
Committee. “Renewable Energy Transmission Initiative Phase 1B Final Report.”
California Energy Commission, January 2009.
[7] Pletka,
Ryan, and Joshua Finn. “Western Renewable Energy Zones, Phase 1: QRA
Identification Technical Report.” Black & Veatch and National Renewable
Energy Laboratory, 2009.
https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy10osti/46877.pdf.
[8]
https://www.census.gov/cgi-bin/geo/shapefiles/index.php?year=2019&layergroup=Urban+Areas
[9]
https://ezmt.anl.gov/
[10]
https://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=fc870766a3994111bce4a083413988e4
[11]
https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mineplant/
Credits
Title:
Techno-economic screening criteria for utility-scale wind energy installations
for Integrated Resource Planning
Purpose for
creation: These site suitability criteria are for use in electric system
planning, capacity expansion modeling, and integrated resource planning.
Keywords: wind
energy, resource potential, techno-economic, IRP
Extent: western
states of the contiguous U.S.
Use Limitations
The
geospatial data created by the use of these techno-economic screens inform
high-level estimates of technical renewable resource potential for electric
system planning and should not be used, on their own, to guide siting of
generation projects nor assess project-level impacts.
Confidentiality:
Public
Contact
Emily Leslie Emily@MontaraMtEnergy.com
Sam Schreiber sam.schreiber@ethree.com
Jared Ferguson Jared.Ferguson@cpuc.ca.gov
Oluwafemi Sawyerr femi@ethree.com
