Resources for Renewable Energy Resource and Supply Assessment

This page provides links to renewable energy resource maps and resource assessment tools, and includes a compilation of energy efficiency and renewable energy regional supply studies. We provide these resources — organized alphabetically by technology — for state- and local-level energy analysts, officials, and decision makers who are interested in requesting help from the Technical Assistance Project.

Resource Maps and Online Tools

Biomass/Bioenergy

• State Assessment for Biomass Resources

  Accesses a tool that provides comprehensive information on biomass resources available in each state, including crops and crop residues, forestry residues, and urban wastes.

Geothermal

• Geothermal Resource Maps

  Provides links to geothermal resource maps that show information including projects, electrical generation, and areas for potential applications.

Hydrogen

• Hydrogen Maps

  Provides maps that offer assistance in hydrogen infrastructure, demand, market, and resource analysis.

Hydropower

• Hydropower Resource Assessment

  Provides access to tools and software designed to assist the user in locating and assessing natural stream water energy resources in the United States, as well as access to state-specific resource assessment reports and studies.

Solar

• Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Resource Maps

  Links to a dynamic U.S. solar-resource atlas, PVWATTS (an online tool that calculates electrical energy produced by a grid-connected photovoltaic PV system in a geographic location), and other solar maps.

• Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) Resource Maps

  Provides maps that identify the most economically suitable lands available for the deployment of large-scale concentrating solar power plants in the southwestern United States.

Wind

• Wind Powering America - State Wind Resource Maps

  Provides validated, high-resolution state wind maps that can be used to determine whether your area of interest should be further explored.

• Federal Wind Siting Information Center

  Provides access to national and state wind resource maps prepared by federal agencies and departments; as well as wind turbine-siting policies, regulations, studies, and tools.

Comprehensive Information

• Dynamic Maps, GIS Data, and Analysis Tools

  Provides access to dynamic renewable energy resource maps, GIS data, and analysis tools developed at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Regional Supply Studies

Some of the following documents are available as Adobe Acrobat PDFs. Download Adobe Reader.

• Western Governors' Association - Clean and Diversified Energy Task Force Reports

  Includes reports on resource supply and cost studies for various renewable energy technologies in the Western Governors' Association region.

• Wind Supply Curves and Location Scenarios in the West (PDF 2.1 MB)

  Includes wind energy supply curves developed for states in the Western Governors' Association region. These supply curves describe the amount of wind energy that can be produced in the specified regions at alternative prices.

• Geothermal Regional and State Data

  Provides links to regional and state geothermal resource and development data, as well as geothermal resource development software.

• Arizona Renewable Energy Assessment (PDF 2.8 MB)

  Assesses the prospects for significant renewable energy development in Arizona.