Wind Monitoring
BC Hydro began its wind monitoring program in April 2000, erecting wind monitoring equipment at a number of locations throughout B.C. All of these wind monitoring stations have been decommissioned or are being operated by private parties.
Wind Monitoring Data Available
In Summer 2003, BC Hydro issued CD-ROMs containing wind data for all of the wind monitoring stations up to June 2003. The complete data set up to August 2004, including previously-released data, is being offered for download to interested parties at no charge. Our objective in releasing this information is to help enable wind energy development in British Columbia by the private sector.
The wind data is presented in compressed (.zip) files and is divided into four regions to minimize the file sizes. Any one or all of the regional data sets can be downloaded at the link below. It is raw (unanalyzed) data, segmented by region and by project location. Data includes 10-minute average wind speed and direction, the standard deviation for both wind speed and direction, the 10-minute maximum wind speed, and air temperature. In addition, a Site Summary Sheet is provided that includes the site co-ordinates, a description of the monitoring equipment and a summary of maintenance issues. Note that extraction software (e.g., WinZip) and Adobe Acrobat Reader are required to view the data.
This data set is the final release of wind monitoring data and contains all data collected from the time that the monitoring equipment was installed in a given location until the decommissioning date or the date of ownership transfer (in the case of stations being taken over by private parties). No further release of wind data is anticipated.
The regional data sets contain the following site data:
Interior [zip, 7.7 Mb]
- Ashcroft
- Bald Mountain
- Chilko Lake
- Merritt
North Coast [zip, 4.4 Mb]
- Mount Hays
Peace Region [zip, 14.2 Mb]
- Aasen
- Bear Mountain
- Bessborough
- Erbe
- Wartenbe
Vancouver Island [zip, 22.4 Mb]
- Alert Bay
- CBC Port Alice
- Franklin
- Great Central Lake
- Jordan Ridge
- Pulteney Point
- Rumble Main
- Rumble North
