SITE PATH
METHODOLOGIES AND REPORTS
WHAT’S ON THIS PAGE
Somehow the wind industry has become secretive, almost absurdly so.
If you hand the same wind data to 10 different consultants you get 10 wildly different answers for forecasted energy production, and even worse, no one will show you how they arrived at their answer. As a matter of fact, the National Renewable Energy Lab did exactly that and wrote a report about it.
Study from the National Renewable Energy Lab – Performance Risk, Uncertainty, and Finance
Findings regarding forecasting uncertainty, from the NREL study.
Our Methodologies
We believe that secrecy and black boxes create long-term problems for the industry.
The wind industry has become a series of competing black boxes, and we don’t think that’s right. In fact, we believe that secrecy and black boxes create long-term problems for the industry. We don’t trust consultants and we sure as heck don’t expect them to just trust us. We are also unwilling to compete with their black box when we are willing to share our entire means and methods.
What’s more, wind energy consultants operate in the utility-scale industry, where there are years of on-site data. We operate in the Wind for Industry sector, where we develop projects with far less on-site data out of necessity. We are not the industry standard – and we don’t expect to be treated as such. But we will always promise to share our entire means and methods. Transparency is our baseline.
As the largest installer of on-site wind energy projects in the U.S., the burden to lead meaningful change falls on our shoulders. And, we will gladly carry that burden. As such, we have released our entire set of development methodologies to the world as-is.
We make no guarantees that these are the best methods available or that they are all correct. But we have invested millions of dollars and years of research into developing them, and we wholeheartedly believe in them, especially for distributed projects. Please read them and use them if they are helpful to you. We reserve all rights to our methodologies, but you are free to use them for education and industry improvement.
Corporate Value #9: Never Settle for the Industry Standard.
This is the most transparent wind development program that we know of.
When you couple our methodology reports (linked below) with The
Continuum Project, the open-source software we have developed
and released, this is the most transparent wind development
program that we know of in the world. A consultant should be able to follow the methodologies and arrive at the same answer we do.
That is repeatability and accountability. That is science. A black box is not.
We have released our scientific methodologies. We dare other companies and consultants to do the same.
Updates pending.
Our Feasibility Study
In addition, One Power does not believe that the industry has gone far enough to show what a comprehensive feasibility study for a Wind for Industry project should look like. So, we will throw down another gauntlet: below is a redacted copy of one of our feasibility studies (which we call an Initial Evaluation).
This is a comprehensive study that identifies risks and defines a project. Again, we reserve all rights to this document, but it can be used for education and industry improvement.