Potential Locations for the Development of Wind Farms in Vermont

1
Potential Locations for the Development of Wind
Farms in Vermont

• Erin Turner

2
The Development of Alternative Sources of Energy

• The issues surrounding the development of wind
  power are of great interest to me. It is a field
  of study where I can draw on my geographical
  knowledge as well as my social knowledge. My
  goal is to work to educate people about the
  benefits of wind energy in hopes that it will
  become a more widely accepted standard in the
  energy industry.
• The development of alternative sources of energy
  is important. It is important to have an
  alternative when the finite resources we depend
  on now, like oil, actually run out.
• Previous literature on the topic outlines the
  history and development of the move towards wind
  energy as an alternative energy source, one that
  is emissions free and has no long-term negative
  environmental effects.
• Current literature, local to Vermont, describes
  the debate over the invasion of wind farms on
  Vermonts ridgelines.
• GIS has many applications within the field of
  wind power development. Many studies and
  analyses have been completed with the help of
  GISs capabilities.

3
Objectives

• With my project I aimed to analyze wind
  resolution, land cover and electric
• transmission line data throughout Vermont to
  assess optimal sites for the
• future proposal and development of wind farms.
• Where are optimal locations for wind farm
  development in the state of
• Vermont according to wind resolution data?
• Are these locations viable in respect to
  currently existing electric transmission lines,
  or would new networks have to be installed to
  develop a certain wind farm?
• What sort of land cover is in these locations,
  and how will that be a potential problem for
  development?

4
Methods
I made two maps, one illustrating wind farm
candidates in relation to electric transmission
lines. . .
Clipped Vt_50mwind by Bndhash.region_vtbnd layer
to make a map contained within Vermonts state
border. Classified the Vt_50mwind data,
designating each Wind Power Class (WPC) a
different hue. This resulted in 7 different
classes. Selected by attribute WPCgt3 to find
sites with good wind (Wind Farm
Candidates-WPCgt3) Overlayed UtilityTransmit_ELTRN
layer and performed a spatial join. I joined
data from another layer based on spatial location
to obtain a distance field. This distance field
gave me the distance of ETLs from all of the
potential wind farm sites (Wind Farm
Candidates-WPCgt3).
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Methods
. . .and the other looking at wind farm
candidates in relation to land cover.
Masked and evaluated nlcd_vt LandLandcov_NLCDVT
layer by the bndhash.region_vt to create a map
within Vermonts state border. Converted Wind
Farm Candidates-WPCgt3 layer from features to
raster, then combined the new raster layer with
the existing land cover data layer. This
combination created a new table allowing me to
see the count of each land cover type in each
Wind Power Class (WPC). This allowed me to
interpret the type of land cover associated with
potential wind farm sites.
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Findings

• The first map I created resulted in the following
  findings
• Approximately 56 of Vermont has a Wind Power
  Class of greater than 3, which designates these
  areas as having good wind.
• Approximately 8 of these areas are zero meters
  away from existing electric transmission lines.
  This mean that less construction would occur in
  these areas, which means less disruption to the
  surrounding environment during the construction
  of the wind farms.
• Table 3 illustrates the number
• of potential wind farm sites in each
• of the fourteen counties of
• Vermont. From this table it is easy
• to see that the bulk of the
• potential wind farm sites are
• located in the counties of Benning-
• ton, Caledonia, Essex, Orange,
• Orleans, Rutland, Washington,
• Windsor and Windham.

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Findings

• The second map I created resulted in the
  following findings
• Generally, I have found that most of the
  potential wind farm sites are located on forested
  lands (Chart 1).
• Deciduous forest is the land cover on fifty-seven
  percent (57) of the sites, mixed forest covers
  the area on twenty-two percent (22) and
  evergreen forest covers the site area on fourteen
  percent (14) of the sites (Chart 1).

Chart 1
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• What I learned
• Producing a map takes creative thinking and
  manipulation of data.
• It is also very time consuming and sometimes
  frustrating. However,
• the end result is pleasing and relieving.
• Error and Limitation
• There may have been errors in the data that I
  used to perform my analysis,
• which may have led to errors in my analysis.
• Personal limitation the amount of knowledge
  that I have about doing such
• a large scale project may have hindered my
  performance
• With more time, money and resources
• I would have loved to work with the viewshed
  option to be able to
• incorporate residential data into my project.
• I would continue with this project and take more
  factors into consideration when choosing
  potential sites. For example elevation,
  migratory bird patterns, endangered species
  habitats or proximity to residential areas.