America Powered by Wind

The U.S. Wind Turbine Database (USWTDB) is a new dataset of wind turbine locations and capabilities. The dataset can be visualized on a new interactive map showing the locations of all the USA's wind turbines. The USWTDB Viewer shows both onshore and offshore wind turbines and their technical specifications.

The map visualizes 57,636 turbines, which combined have a total rated capacity of 89,197 MW. Initially the individual turbines are color-coded on the map by their capacity (blue having the least capacity and red the most). However it is possible to change what the turbine color ramp shows to visualize the wind turbines by height or by year of construction.

If you zoom-in on an area of the United States the map sidebar updates to show the total number of wind turbines in the current map view and their combined capacity. The sidebar also updates to list the individual projects in view, with details on the project name, number of turbines and total capacity.

The wind turbine database has been compiled by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA). The database is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, the USGS Energy Resources Program, and AWEA.


You can get a sense of the historical growth of wind power in the United States using the US Department of Energy's Wind Farms Through the Years map. This animated map shows the locations and the dates of when wind farms were constructed in the USA. The map animates through the years 1975 to 2013 adding the wind farms to the map by date of construction.

As the animation plays the map keeps a total of the number of wind farms constructed and the number of homes those wind farms could power. You can also drag the slide control to view the totals for any single year. The map uses different colored markers to indicate the wind farms added in the selected year.


Last year the Technical University of Denmark and the World Bank collaborated to create the Global Wind Atlas. The atlas is designed to visualize the potential for wind power generation across the whole globe. The map uses both mesoscale and microscale modeling in order to help utilize wind energy.

The Global Wind Atlas can provide wind resource information for individual countries & regions or you can use the drawing tools to view wind resource data for a custom defined area. The wind data available on the map includes information on power density, wind direction and wind speed.