Meteorological aspects of wind energy: Assessing the resource and selecting the sites

Research on wind characteristics within the United States' wind energy program is addressing problems of resource assessment, site selection, design and performance evaluation of wind machines, and day-to-day operations of wind energy conversion systems (WECS) in utility grids. In this paper, work designed to improve our understanding of the wind energy resource within the United States is discussed. The techniques and procedures that have been developed for finding wind machine sites are also examined.