First-ever global wind map promises to accelerate development of renewable energy projects

“With more than 1.3 billion people around the world with no access to electricity, REmapping the World will change the way we look at the world’s renewable energy resources through sophisticated mapping technology,” said Kenneth Westrick, 3TIER CEO and founder. Westrick said.

“Communities in developing countries finally will have – at little or no cost – the information to help them decide whether renewable energy can power their communities,” Westrick said.  “These maps will help leaders and developers throughout the world assess their renewable energy potential and make important policy and economic decisions as a result.

“3TIER’s REmapping the World initiative will provide the critical information that has been missing to make renewable energy a viable choice – and resolve the issues around the availability, accessibility and useability of global renewable resource information.”

The map provides global wind data at an 80 m height over a 15 km area for a single year. As a result, 3TIER determined that more than 40 percent of the world’s land mass has wind speeds at more than 6 m per second. Even though some of that land is not accessible for commercial development, the potential for future renewable projects is quite large. Currently, less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the global land mass has been developed for large-scale wind projects.

The global wind map can be viewed at firstlook.3tiergroup.com.

“This 15 km map is meant to answer initial questions about what kind of wind potential exists globally,” Westrick said. “The map provides enough resolution so countries and organizations can begin to look at the potential wind resource at a regional level. It will also help locate sites that are not currently obvious or known.

“If we want developing nations to ‘leapfrog’ over fossil fuels,” Westrick stressed, “they need information about what renewable energy resources or combination of resources exist.”
Developers generally need at least a 5 km or better resolution view to assess land for commercial wind development. Currently, 3TIER’s FirstLook™ Assessment tool provides a 5 km map for both wind and solar for the continental United States. FirstLook, also a Web-based tool, makes it faster and more cost-effective for developers to evaluate potential sites for wind or solar projects.

“As demands for energy increase and traditional fuel sources decrease, it is clear renewable energy is critical to serve our future energy needs around the world,” said Marcel Brenninkmeijer, Chairman and founder of Good Energies, a leading global investor in the renewable energy and energy efficiency industry, and an investor in 3TIER. “We need to look at a global solution if we want developing nations to choose renewable energy – and that means they need information about what renewable energy resources or combination of resources exist.

“3TIER’s Remapping the World initiative is a big step in this direction – and representative of the type of investments Good Energies seeks to help drive the transition to a low carbon, clean energy economy, including bringing affordable renewable energy to the developing world.”

Westrick said 3TIER, which developed the 15 km map at its own cost, wants “people to be able to view the map online for free so they can gain a better understanding of the potential of the wind resource at any location around the world. What we are offering for free allows countries and organizations to begin serious discussions about how to utilize the potential wind resource and what type of policies should be implemented to encourage renewable energy development.”

Over the next 21 months, 3TIER plans to continue to map the world at 5 km, country by country, based upon a priority order that takes into account such issues as renewable energy policies, availability of the wind resource, and economic status.

Beginning in 2009, 3TIER will begin to release solar resource assessment maps for regions around the world based on a quarterly basis.

3TIER chose to unveil its global wind map at the Washington International Renewable Energy Conference (WIREC 2008) because of its focus to foster increased worldwide political support and public awareness for renewable energy, new and innovative actions to promote widespread adoption of renewable energy, and advanced tools for collecting and disseminating best practices to end users.

WIREC brought together government, civil society and private business leaders to address the benefits and costs of a major and rapid scale-up in the global deployment of renewable energy technology. Representatives from more than 70 countries were in attendance.

ABOUT 3TIER
Founded in 1999, Seattle-based 3TIER is one of the largest independent providers of wind, solar and hydro energy assessment and power forecasting worldwide. People around the world turn to 3TIER when they want the best scientific information to make decisions about renewable energy projects — from the prospecting stage to operations. For more information, visit 3tiergroup.com.

ABOUT GOOD ENERGIES
Good Energies (www.goodenergies.com) is a leading investor in the renewable energy industry, managing the renewable energies portfolio of the COFRA Group, a privately owned group of companies.  The current market capitalization of its portfolio is over five billion dollars.  Good Energies places its emphasis on the interrelated business areas of solar energy, wind energy, load management and green buildings.  Good Energies operates globally with offices in London, New York, Toronto, Washington D.C. and Zug.  The company invests across all life cycles of a company and pursues a long-term investment approach.  Good Energies is guided by the 3-P-principle (3-Ps): people-planet-profit; being an investment firm it also aims to accelerate energy transition and strives to alleviate poverty by improving access to affordable renewable energy.