USWTDB Wind Turbine Proximity Screener — Nearest by Coordinate

Screen any list of coordinates against the U.S. Wind Turbine Database (USWTDB) — ~72,000 land-based and offshore wind turbines maintained by the USGS, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), and the American Clean Power Association. For every site you pass in, the actor returns the nearest wind turbine, how many turbines fall within your radius, the tallest turbine nearby, and the total nameplate capacity (MW) in range — one clean, billable row per asset.

Answers, by coordinate: Is there a wind turbine near this site? How close? How tall? How many? How much capacity?

Who it's for

• Aviation / obstruction analysts — flag tall-structure and airspace-obstruction exposure near heliports, airstrips, low-level routes, and survey sites (USWTDB total height t_ttlh is tip height).
• Radar, telecom & met-tower siting engineers — screen candidate sites for wind-turbine clutter / interference before a detailed study.
• Real-estate, land & renewable due-diligence — property-line setback checks, viewshed/nuisance screening, Phase-I style site reviews.
• Wind developers & asset managers — find existing turbines (project, manufacturer, model, hub height, rotor diameter) near a parcel for repowering and greenfield-conflict analysis.
• AI agents & data pipelines — a chainable geospatial lookup that turns a coordinate into a structured turbine-proximity summary.

How it works

1. You supply assets — a list of {lat, lon, label, state?} sites.
2. For each asset the actor fetches every turbine in that state from USWTDB, trying three interchangeable sources in order until one responds: the USGS ArcGIS FeatureServer, the USWTDB REST (PostgREST) API, then the full CSV download as a fallback. This multi-source design keeps the actor working even if one endpoint is temporarily down.
3. It computes the haversine distance to every turbine, keeps those within radiusMiles, and rolls the result up into one row.

Supplying state (2-letter, e.g. IA, TX) per asset is recommended; if omitted it is inferred from the coordinate by state bounding box (approximate near state borders).

Example input

{
  "assets": [
    { "lat": 42.03, "lon": -95.02, "label": "Storm Lake wind area, IA", "state": "IA" },
    { "lat": 40.7128, "lon": -74.006, "label": "Lower Manhattan, NY (control)", "state": "NY" }
  ],
  "radiusMiles": 10,
  "maxAssets": 500
}

Output fields (one row per asset)

Field	Meaning
asset_label, asset_lat, asset_lon	Echo of the site you submitted
radius_miles	Radius used for the aggregation
turbine_count_within_radius	Turbines within the radius
nearest_distance_miles	Distance to the closest turbine in the state (always reported)
nearest_project	Project/wind-farm name of the nearest turbine (p_name)
nearest_manufacturer	Manufacturer of the nearest turbine (t_manu)
nearest_total_height_m	Total (tip) height of the nearest turbine (t_ttlh)
max_total_height_m_nearby	Tallest turbine total height within the radius
total_capacity_mw_nearby	Sum of nameplate capacity within the radius (MW)
turbines_present_flag	true when ≥1 turbine falls within the radius
error	Null on success; message when a site can't be screened
source_url	USWTDB source used
checked_at	ISO run timestamp

Use as an MCP tool

This actor is a clean, chainable tool for AI agents (Claude, Cursor, etc.) via mcp.apify.com. Each output field has a description in the schema, so an agent can call it with a coordinate and reason directly over turbine_count_within_radius, nearest_distance_miles, and total_capacity_mw_nearby — e.g. as one step in an obstruction- or siting-analysis pipeline.

FAQ

Is there a wind turbine near this coordinate? Yes — pass the lat/lon and read nearest_distance_miles and turbines_present_flag.

How current is the data? USWTDB is quarterly-updated by USGS/LBNL/ACP and lags new installations by roughly one quarter. Turbine points are visually verified from aerial imagery to ~10 m; some specs carry make/model uncertainty.

Do I need an API key? No. USWTDB is public-domain and keyless.

What radius should I use? Default is 10 miles. Use a smaller radius for tight obstruction/setback checks or a larger one for regional density screening (max 100 mi).

Why do I still get a nearest_* value when the count is 0? The count only includes turbines inside your radius, but the single nearest turbine in the state is always reported so you know how far the closest one is.

Is this an official FAA/obstruction determination? No. This is a screening aid over USWTDB data, not an FAA obstruction evaluation, a radar-interference study, or a legal setback ruling. Verify against authoritative sources.

Data source & citation

U.S. Wind Turbine Database (USWTDB) — USGS, LBNL, and the American Clean Power Association. https://eerscmap.usgs.gov/uswtdb/ · DOI: 10.5066/F7TX3DN0