DOE and the U.S. Agency for International
Development (USAID), in collaboration with Winrock
International and the U.S. National Rural Electric
Cooperative Association (NRECA), sponsored this
study to facilitate and accelerate the large-scale use of
wind energy technologies in the Dominican Republic.
NREL had the lead responsibility in administering and
conducting this project and in collaborating with
USAID, NRECA, and Winrock on project activities.
The primary goal of the project was to develop detailed
wind resource maps for all regions of the Dominican
Republic and to produce a comprehensive wind
resource atlas documenting the mapping results.
The Wind Energy Resource Atlas of the Dominican
Republic (Elliott et al. in progress) presents the wind
resource analysis and mapping results for the
Dominican Republic. The wind resource maps were
created using a program developed at NREL based on
Geographic Information System (GIS) software. The
mapping program combines high-resolution terrain data
and formatted meteorological data and is designed to
highlight the most favorable wind resource areas for
wind energy projects based on the level of wind
resource.

NREL recently developed an automated wind resource
mapping system to replace the manual analysis

techniques employed in previous mapping efforts, such
as the Wind Energy Resource Atlas of the United States
(Elliott et al. 1987) and the Wind Energy Resource
Assessment of the Caribbean and Central America
(Elliott et al. 1987). The two primary inputs to NREL’s
wind mapping system are gridded terrain data with
1 km2 resolution and formatted meteorological data.
The meteorological data sources include surface (land
and open-ocean) and upper-air data sets. These data are
screened to select representative stations and data
periods for use as input to the mapping system. The
final meteorological inputs to the mapping system are
vertical profiles of wind power density, wind power
roses, which express the percentage of total potential
power from the wind by direction sector, and the openocean
wind power density where appropriate for coastal
areas. The GIS determines any required adjustments to
these composite distributions for each 1-km2 grid cell.
The factors that have the greatest influence on the
adjustment for a particular grid cell are the topography
in the vicinity of the grid cell and a combination of the
absolute and relative elevation of the grid cell. The
primary output of the mapping system is a color-coded
map containing the estimated wind power density, and
equivalent wind speed, for each individual grid cell.
To portray the mapping results, the Dominican
Republic was divided into four regions—southwestern,
northwestern, central, and eastern. Each region covered
an area of approximately 160 km by 160 km. The
regional divisions were determined principally by the
geography of the country and the desire to maintain the
same map scale for each region. Surface, satellite, and
upper-air data were assembled, processed, and
analyzed. These data sets included information
provided by the Dominican Republic meteorological
service (Oficina Nacional de Meteorologia), the
Dominican Republic hydrological service (Instituto
Nacional de Recursos Hidraulicos), USAID, U.S.
National Climatic Data Center, U.S. National Center for
Atmospheric Research, and other U.S. sources. The
data from USAID’s sites (Figure 1) were collected in
collaboration with the NRECA and Winrock
International/REGAE (Renewable Energy Growth

the Dominican Republic and the limited number and
value of land-based observations. The mapping system
generated a composite national wind resource map of
the Dominican Republic and the four regional wind
resource maps.
A combination of wind characteristics helps to
determine the wind energy resource in a particular area.
Factors such as the annual and monthly average wind
speeds and the seasonal and diurnal wind patterns affect
the suitability of an area for development. In general,
locations with an annual average wind speed of 7
meters per second (m/s) or greater at turbine hub height
are most suitable for utility grid-connected wind energy
systems, and some locations with speeds between 6 and
7 m/s may be viable. Rural power applications are usually viable at lower wind speeds (5 to 6 m/s), in
some cases at wind speeds as low as 4.5 m/s.
The average wind speed is not the best indicator of the
resource. Instead, the level of the wind resource is
often defined in terms of the wind power density value,
expressed in watts per square meter (W/m2). This
incorporates the combined effects of the wind speed
frequency distribution and the dependence of the wind
power on air density and the cube of the wind speed.
Thus, six wind power classifications, based on ranges
of wind power density values, were established in each
of two categories—one for utility scale applications,
ranging from marginal to excellent, and one for rural
power applications, ranging from moderate to excellent.
This classification scheme is presented in Table 1.

(a) Mean wind speed is estimated assuming a Weibull distribution of wind speeds with a shape factor (k) of 3.0 and standard sea-level air
density. The actual mean wind speed may differ from these estimated values by as much as 20 percent, depending on the actual wind speed
distribution (or Weibull k value) and elevation above sea level.

The wind resource in the Dominican Republic is
strongly dependent on elevation and proximity to the
coastline. In general, the wind resource is best on
hilltops, ridge crests, and coastal locations that have
excellent exposure to the prevailing winds from the east. The extreme southwestern and northwestern
regions of the country are estimated to have the greatest
number of areas with good-to-excellent wind resources
for utility-scale applications, because the upper-air
winds and ocean winds are greatest in these regions.
The wind mapping results (Figure 2) show many areas

of good-to-excellent wind resource for utility-scale
applications or excellent wind resource for village
power applications, particularly in the extreme
southwestern and northwestern regions of the country.
The best wind resources are found in the southwestern
provinces of Pedernales and Barahona and the
northwestern provinces of Puerto Plata and Monte
Cristi. Significant areas of good-to-excellent wind
resource can be found in many other locations, such as
well-exposed hilltops and ridge crests of the Samana
peninsula and other near-coastal locations throughout
the Dominican Republic and the major mountain ranges
including Cordillera Septentrional, Cordillera Oriental,
Cordillera Central, and Sierra Neiba. The mapping
results show many additional areas of moderate wind
resource for utility-scale applications or good wind
resource for village power applications, including many
east-facing coastal locations along the eastern and
northern coasts of the Dominican Republic.

The assumptions and methods for converting the wind
resource to wind energy potential were based on those
in the report Renewable Energy Technology
Characterizations (DeMeo and Galdo 1997) and are
listed at the bottom of Table 2. About 1500 km2 of windy land areas have been estimated to exist with
good-to-excellent wind resource potential. This windy
land represents less than 3% of the total land area
(48,442 km2) of the Dominican Republic. Using
conservative assumptions of about 7 MW per km2, this
windy land could support over 10,000 MW of potential
installed capacity and potentially delivering over
24 billion kWh per year. Considering only these areas
of good-to-excellent wind resource, there are 20
provinces in the Dominican Republic with at least
100 MW of wind potential and 3 provinces with at least
1000 MW of wind potential. However, additional
studies are required to more accurately assess the wind
electric potential, considering factors such as the
existing transmission grid and accessibility.

If the additional areas with moderate wind resource
potential (or good for rural power applications) are
considered, the estimated total windy land area
increases to more than 4400 km2, or slightly more than
9% of the total land area of the Dominican Republic.
This windy land could support more than 30,000 MW
of installed capacity, delivering more than 60 billion
kWh per year. There are 12 provinces with at least
1000 MW of wind potential and all except for three
provinces have at least 100 MW of wind potential.

Table 2. Dominican Republic—Wind Electric Potential
Good-to-Excellent Wind Resource at 30 m (Utility Scale)

Wind Resource Characteristics
The seasonal and diurnal (time-of-day) variability of
the wind resource depends on several factors including
proximity to coastline and exposure to ocean winds,
elevation above sea level and surrounding terrain, and
geographic location. High ridge crests that have
excellent exposure to the winds are expected to have, the highest wind resource from June to August and
December to February, with a maximum in July and a
minimum in October. The diurnal pattern of wind
speeds on exposed ridge crests tend to have the highest
speeds during the night and early morning hours and
lowest during mid-day.

At most inland locations, the wind resource is typically
highest from June through August due to greater winds
aloft and greater vertical mixing, with a secondary
seasonal maximum from March through May. The
wind resource at inland locations is usually lowest from
October through December. The wind resource at
inland locations is typically highest during late morning
and afternoon and is lowest from late night to early
morning. In most coastal areas where land-sea breeze
effects and other land-based influences are prominent,
the seasonal and diurnal variations of the wind resource
are usually similar to those for inland areas.
Coastal points on capes and peninsulas that are well
exposed to the ocean winds are expected to have the
highest wind resource from June to August and
December to February. Generally, these types of
locations will exhibit very small diurnal variations in
the wind resource and are not significantly influenced
by land-sea breeze flows and other types of land-based

The wind resource maps and other wind resource
characteristic information in the Dominican Republic
wind atlas will be useful for identifying prospective
areas for wind energy applications. However, very
limited data were available to validate the wind
resource estimates. Therefore, it is strongly
recommended that wind measurement programs be
conducted to validate the resource estimates and refine
the wind maps and assessment methods where
necessary. A wind measurement program is underway
by USAID in collaboration with NRECA and
Winrock/REGAE, and it is hoped that this program can
be improved and expanded to include additional
locations that are particularly valuable in the validation
of this wind mapping assessment.