How much land and wind resources do large wind plants require?

Each of the seven turbines in the MEAN Wind Project at Kimball takes up, approximately, a mere 25 feet by 25 feet of land.

In fact, wind farms take up such a minimal area that to provide 20 percent of America's electricity, or 560,000 million kilowatt-hours per year, only 0.6 percent of the land of the lower 48 states would have to be developed with wind power plants, according to a study by Pacific Northwest Laboratory (PNL). Further, less than 5 percent of this land would be physically occupied by wind turbines, electrical equipment and access roads. Most existing land use, such as farming and ranching, would remain unaffected.

The PNL study found that almost every region of the United States has some areas that contain good wind energy resources. In fact, the Northeast, Northwest, Southwest and Atlantic Coastal regions all contain significant wind energy resources. Moreover, some states, such as those that lie on the Great Plains from Texas to North Dakota, have a huge electricity-generating potential from the wind. The wind potential from each of these states far exceeds its current electricity consumption.

Today's technology exploits high-wind locations — those in Wind Power Class 5 or greater — with average annual wind speeds of approximately 16 mph and higher at a height of 30 meters.