Landowners in Nova Scotia can soon go online to assess their property’s potential to host wind turbines.
Researchers at l’Universite de Moncton and Nova Scotia Community College have set up a wind atlas for Nova Scotia, illustrating how much wind is available in the province and where to find it.
The new atlas is expected to be valuable for future wind policy and planning, and help smaller-scale wind power developers — those without the resources to do their own mapping — to pencil out the viability of their projects.
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“It also provides a motivation for local entrepreneurs, small businesses, community groups, co-operatives and individuals to look at wind as a potential source to generate their electricity,” said Yves Gagnon of l’Universite de Moncton.
David Colville of NSCC said the atlas web site will soon allow interactive research of the wind data collected, providing references to nearby towns, roads and power transmission lines. “People will be able to locate their own backyards and assess their wind potential,” he said in a release.
The maps show wind speeds at 30, 50 and 80 metres above ground, illustrating an area’s potential for both large-scale high-altitude wind farms and smaller-scale projects build closer to the ground.
Nova Scotia’s goal is to have nearly 20 per cent of its power come from “green” sources like wind by 2013, during which time it expects the number of wind turbines to grow from 40 now to over 250.
CORRECTION, Oct. 8, 2008: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that the online, interactive wind atlas was already available. Agcanada.com regrets the error.
