
266 Engineering Response to Climate Change
improvements in materials, design, and manufacturing to reach elevations
above the ground where wind resources are greater. As shown in Figure7.6,
these higher hub height machines have opened up many new resource areas
that were not considered in the past due to lower wind speeds at lower
heights above ground.
Due to terrain features, onshore wind energy resources vary spatially at
a ner resolution than solar resources. Figure 7.6 shows the annual aver-
age wind speed at the hub height of 80 m for new onshore turbines across
the United States. While the wind resource is not as smoothly available as ...