Where are wind turbines located in the US?

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We recently looked at the location of wind turbine in Europe. On this map, we’re going to look at where wind turbines are located in the US.

Every green dot on this map represents a wind turbine. The brighter green areas represent a higher density of wind turbines.

We can see that most of the wind turbines in the US can be found in the Great Plains. When we look at the wind speed map, it’s no surprise that most of the wind turbines in the US are located in the Great Plains. We also see a higher concentration in the Mid-West. To be specific in Illinois, Indiana and Michigan. This is also an area that experiences higher wind speeds.

The Deep South is almost completely free of wind turbines. When looking at the wind speed map, this does make sense. This part of the United States has some of the lowest wind speeds.

The data for this map comes from OpenStreetMap. Please be aware that it could be possible that some wind turbines are missing. OpenStreetMap data is usually fairly accurate, but depending on the state, it could be somewhat incomplete. I’ve analysed the data I extracted from OpenStreetMap and removed any wind turbines that were demolished or not constructed yet. I did this based on the attribute table. As this dataset contains tens of thousands of wind turbines, it’s impossible to check every single one of them with the satellite images.