NREL NWTC M2 Tower: Meteorological Data for Wind Energy Research

The National Wind Technology Center (NWTC) M2 tower dataset provides meteorological measurements from an 82-meter tower near Boulder, Colorado. Data includes wind speed and direction at six heights, air temperature at three heights, dew point, humidity, pressure, precipitation, and solar radiation. Measurements are two-second readings averaged into one-minute mean values, collected by NREL for the U.S. Department of Energy.

Use Cases

• Modeling wind shear and turbulence profiles based on wind speed measurements at six heights.
• Validating wind resource assessment tools using co-located meteorological variables like temperature, humidity, and pressure.
• Analyzing the relationship between solar radiation and local wind patterns for renewable energy integration studies.
• Calibrating numerical weather prediction models with high-temporal-resolution, ground-truth atmospheric data.

Strengths

• Data is sourced from a world-class research facility (NREL NWTC) managed for the U.S. Department of Energy.
• Wind speed and direction are measured at six distinct heights on an 82-meter tower, enabling vertical profile analysis.
• Includes multiple co-located atmospheric variables (temperature, humidity, pressure, precipitation, solar radiation) for multivariate analysis.

Limitations

• Row count and file size are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for large-scale ML tasks.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics and units must be inferred after download.
• Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.

Provenance

Source

National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) Measurement and Instrument Data Center.

Collection Method

Instruments mounted on or near an 82-meter meteorological tower, with two-second readings averaged into one-minute means.

Geography

Western edge of the NWTC site, approximately 8 km south of Boulder, Colorado, USA.