DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.4768390
title: Wind and Solar Candidate Project Areas for Princeton REPEAT

description: This data set contains the GIS data for solar, land-based wind, and offshore wind Candidate Project Areas (CPAs) under base (BLUA). Each record in this dataset represents a “Candidate Project Area” with attributes such as nameplate capacity, annual generation, model region, distance to transmission, etc. The Lawrence Berkeley National Lab MAPRE tools (https://mapre.lbl.gov/gis-tools/) were used to create this dataset, along with input assumptions adapted from Wu et al 2020 (Grace C Wu <em>et al</em> 2020 <em>Environ. Res. Lett.</em> 15 074044) and E. Larson, C. Greig, J. Jenkins, E. Mayfield, A. Pascale, C. Zhang, J. Drossman, R. Williams, S. Pacala, R. Socolow, EJ Baik, R. Birdsey, R. Duke, R. Jones, B. Haley, E. Leslie, K. Paustian, and A. Swan, Net-Zero America: Potential Pathways, Infrastructure, and Impacts, interim report, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, December 15, 2020.<br> <br> What's new in this version: Solar: Prime farmland eligible for utility scale solar development throughout the study area. Solar configuration: single-axis tracking solar assumed per VCE data Additional attributes calculated: Aspect indicates the compass direction toward which a slope faces, measured in degrees from North in a clockwise direction from 0 to 360. Surface is flat where aspect_min = -1 (Source: https://www.sciencebase.gov/catalog/item/5540ec40e4b0a658d7939628) Wind: additional airspace and military exclusions applied Airfields with arrivals and departures &gt; 1000 buffered by 5 mi Weather radar stations buffered 5 mi NEXRAD radar buffered 3 km Military installations, ranges and training areas buffered 5 mi Wind: additional attributes calculated: VFR navigation landmarks (buffered 2 nautical mi) Navaid systems (buffered 8 nautical mi) Special Use Airspace (floor &lt;=1000 ft) Additional attribute for both solar and wind: m_landcover indicates landcover type (per USGS NLCD 2016. https://www.mrlc.gov/data/legends/national-land-cover-database-2016-nlcd2016-legend)
description: Field definitions: OBJECTID This field is automatically created by ArcMap software. Ignore. Area_km2 Area of the Candidate Project Area (km2) eGrid_to_E Indicates which model region the candidate project area is located d_road_km Distance to the nearest road (km) (source: ArcGIS) m_slope Mean slope for the Candidate Project Area (degrees) (source: USGS 2011) m_popden Population density (person/km2) (source: Landscan) incap Nameplate Capacity (MW ac) (source: analysis using LBNL MAPRE GIS tools) d_sub_161k Distance to the nearest existing substation with voltage &gt;= 161 kV (km) (source: HIFLD 2019) d_sub_load Distance from the nearest existing substation with voltage &gt;= 161 kV (km) to the nearest electric load center, defined as Census Bureau Metropolitan Statistical Area with population &gt;= 750,000 (source: U.S. Census Bureau 2016) Shape_Length This field is automatically created by ArcMap software. Ignore. Shape_Area This field is automatically created by ArcMap software. Ignore. d_existingFacil distance to nearest existing facility of like kind (solar or wind) (source: USGS National Solar Arrays and USWTDB) d_planned facil distance to nearest planned facility existing facility of like kind (solar or wind) (source: EIA 860) m_HMI Human Modification Index is a metric indicating level of landscape intactness (Theobald 2020) m_primeFarmland Boolean indicating presence of prime farmland (USDA NRCS, Esri, October 1, 2019) m_aspect indicates the compass direction toward which a slope faces, measured in degrees from North in a clockwise direction from 0 to 360 (calculated as mean value within CPA) m_aspect_min same as m_aspect, but calculated as the minimum value within the candidate project are, to retain -1 values indicating flat land specialUseAirspace indicates the presence of special use airspace with floor &lt;=1000 ft above ground level (wind only) (source: U.S. Military Aviation and Installation Assurance Siting Clearinghouse) navaid flight route navigation aid (8 nautical mile buffer) source: https://services6.arcgis.com/ssFJjBXIUyZDrSYZ/ArcGIS/rest/services/NAVAIDSystem/FeatureServer visualFlightRoute (2 nautical Mile buffer) source: https://tfsgis.tfs.tamu.edu/arcgis/rest/services/Aviation/FAA_Sectional_Charts/MapServer exFacil indicates presence of existing facility of like type (1 or 0) plFacil indicates presence of planned facility of like type (1 or 0) m_landcover indicates landcover type per USGS National Land Cover Dataset cf indicates mean annual capacity factor (indicator of annual generation and resource quality)