This dataset provides locations and technical specifications of wind turbines in the United States, almost all of which are utility-scale. Utility-scale turbines are ones that generate power and feed it into the grid, supplying a utility with energy. They are usually much larger than turbines that would feed a homeowner or business. <b>The data formats downloadable from the Minnesota Geospatial Commons contain just the Minnesota turbines. Data, maps and services accessed from the USWTDB website provide nationwide turbines.</b> The regularly updated database has wind turbine records that have been collected, digitized, and locationally verified. Turbine data were gathered from the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) Digital Obstacle File (DOF) and Obstruction Evaluation Airport Airspace Analysis (OE-AAA), the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), and the United States Geological Survey (USGS), and were merged and collapsed into a single data set. Verification of the turbine positions was done by visual interpretation using high-resolution aerial imagery in Esri ArcGIS Desktop. A locational error of plus or minus 10 meters for turbine locations was tolerated. Technical specifications for turbines were assigned based on the wind turbine make and models as provided by manufacturers and project developers directly, and via FAA datasets, information on the wind project developer or turbine manufacturer websites, or other online sources. Some facility and turbine information on make and model did not exist or was difficult to obtain. Thus, uncertainty may exist for certain turbine specifications. Similarly, some turbines were not yet built, not built at all, or for other reasons cannot be verified visually. Location and turbine specifications data quality are rated and a confidence is recorded for both. None of the data are field verified. The U.S. Wind Turbine Database website provides the national data in many different formats: shapefile, CSV, GeoJSON, web services (cached and dynamic), API, and web viewer. See: https://eerscmap.usgs.gov/uswtdb/ The web viewer provides many options to search; filter by attribute, date and location; and customize the map display. For details and screenshots of these options, see: https://eerscmap.usgs.gov/uswtdb/help/ ------------ This metadata record was adapted by the Minnesota Geospatial Information Office (MnGeo) from the national version of the metadata. It describes the Minnesota extract of the shapefile data that has been projected from geographic to UTM coordinates and converted to Esri file geodatabase (fgdb) format. There may be more recent updates available on the national website. Accessing the data via the national web services or API will always provide the most recent data.
The purpose of this information is to provide a regularly updated, publicly available, spatially referenced, national dataset made up almost entirely of utility-scale wind turbine locations and their technical specifications. An appropriate use of the data would be for scientific analysis, research or for general interest for the public. Identification of turbines that have been retrofitted, repowered, decommissioned, and/or removed is a continual ongoing effort; thus, the dataset may contain turbines that were previously verified and subsequently removed.
Date of Minnesota extract (fgdb or shapefile) downloadable from the Minnesota Geospatial Commons. For date of web services, viewer or other formats downloadable from the USWTDB website, or to subscribe to update notifications, see: https://eerscmap.usgs.gov/uswtdb/ November 28, 2023 extract: The latest release includes data on 73,352 turbines covering 43 states (plus Guam and PR). The most recent turbines added to the USWTDB became operational as recently as the second quarter of 2023, with a few from the third quarter of 2023. The oldest turbines in the data set were installed prior to 1990. USWTDB releases generally lag installations by one quarter to allow for merging of the various datasets, visual verification, and quality control.