The World of Wind Atlases – Wind Atlases of the World

Contents of the Russian Wind Atlas

The Atlas is divided into four parts, each intended for readers with different areas of interest – from laymen to professional meteorologists. Note, that Parts 1 and 4 are presented in both Russian and English, Parts 2 and 3 in Russian only.

Part 1: Estimation of the wind energy resource of Russia

Provides an overall view of the wind climate and the magnitude and distribution of wind resources in Russia. This part of the Atlas is intended to be useful to politicians, planners and laymen in general. The descriptions, figures, tables and colour maps permit a first, rapid identification of regions with favourable wind resources. Special attention is given to the long-term variation of the wind resource over Russia and to a historical survey of wind-measuring methods.

Contents of Part 1: Introduction to the wind atlas • The wind resource of Russia • Wind resource maps.

Part 2: Application of the wind atlas (in Russian only)

Gives explanations and information needed for the purpose of regional wind resource assessments and the local siting of wind turbines. It also includes methods for calculating the influence on the wind resource of various features in the landscape such as coastlines, forests, hills, and buildings.

Contents of Part 2: General concepts • The roughness of a terrain • Shelter behind obstacles • The effect of height variations in the terrain • Assessment of regional wind potential • Use of the wind resource maps • Wind energy potential in coastal zones • Wind energy potential in mountainous areas • Siting • Selection of wind climatology for a site • Roughness classification and calculation of statistics for a site • Calculation of mean power density • Calculation of Weibull parameters • Calculation of shelter • Orography • Power production • Determination of mean power production • Power density function • Power duration curve • Optimisation of power production.

Part 3: The Models and the Analysis (in Russian only)

Explains in detail the meteorological background for the Wind Atlas. It describes how the analysis was performed from the data and station information, and discusses the physical and statistical basis for the Wind Atlas models. The validity of the models and the analysis is demonstrated through a number of comparisons between measured and modelled wind statistics.

Contents of Part 3: The physical basis • Surface-layer similarity laws • The geostrophic drag law and the geostrophic wind • The stability model • The roughness change model • The shelter model • The orographic model • The statistical basis • The Weibull distribution • The Wind Atlas analysis model • The Wind Atlas application model • Limitations of data and models.

Part 4: Data for determining the wind energy resource

This part contains the long-term data for 200 meteorological stations and the regional climatological statistics derived from the station data. Furthermore, a list of all 332 stations used in the Atlas is given.

Contents of Part 4: Input and output data for meteorological stations • Meteorological and topographic data • List of stations • Station descriptions and statistical data • List of symbols • Auxiliary tables • The data disk • References.