The Project has developed a new assessment of wind power potentials in China, expressed as capacity factors of typical 1.5 MW wind turbines, screening out areas with unsuitable land uses and topography. The study appeared as the cover article of Science on September 11, 2009 (McElroy et al. 2009).

This research is led by Project Chair Michael McElroy and SEAS doctoral student LU Xi. It takes advantage of NASA global assimilated meteorological datasets that have been validated by hundreds of studies of atmospheric chemistry and transport, and that drive the China Project's atmospheric model described here. A good discussion of its implications is in MIT's Technology Review. It has also been reported by China Daily, Associated Press,  Reuters, Agence France-Presse, Bloomberg, Guardian, CBC, ClimateWire, Discovery, Public Radio International, and other sources (some requiring a subscription).

The team is using similar meteorological databases and methodological approaches to evaluate concentrating solar thermal power potentials, and both wind and solar potentials together, including effects of integrated strategies on power supply variability.

A research article applying the methodology in a global wind assessment appeared in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Lu, McElroy, and Kiviluoma 2009), covered by Time Magazine, The Boston Globe, ABC News, The Telegraph, New Scientist, and National Public Radio. An introduction to the research, with application to the U.S., appeared in Harvard Magazine.