“The Bloomberg of Wind” (Wind Pole Ventures)

Per our occasional theme of doing data better, a company called Wind Pole Ventures wants to be the “Bloomberg of wind.” It has acquired the rights to mount wind-speed sensors on more than 1,000 existing microwave towers across the United States, creating a “wind analytics data network.”

From a CNET News story on the company:

Gathering data at 100 meters (328 feet)—about the same height of wind turbines’ towers—delivers far more accurate information than getting a reading at 10 meters, which is how data is typically gathered now, [CEO Steve] Kropper said.

“Ten states have more than 3 percent wind power in their state and because it’s intermittent, it comes and goes. So wind has the capacity to provide the grid or destabilize it,” he said. “Since there is not storage yet, all we can do is have better predictions for when it blows and when it stops.”

Wind Pole Ventures plans to sell its data and analytics to power companies, wind farm operators and developers, power traders, resource analysts, and government.