Global Solar Atlas

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Global Solar Atlas (GSA v2.2): screenshot of the interactive map interface (status Jun 2020). Global Solar Atlas (GSA v2.2) screenshot.jpg
Global Solar Atlas (GSA v2.2): screenshot of the interactive map interface (status Jun 2020).
Site detail view (in this case for the location Bhadla, Rajasthan, India) summarises the data important for preliminary site assessment of a photovoltaic power plant Globalsolaratlas-info-Project-detail-Bhadla-India--screenshot-by-Solargis.jpg
Site detail view (in this case for the location Bhadla, Rajasthan, India) summarises the data important for preliminary site assessment of a photovoltaic power plant
Global map of Photovoltaic Power Potential downloadable via the Global Solar Atlas (GSA 2.2) Global-Solar-Atlas World PVOUT Solargis.png
Global map of Photovoltaic Power Potential downloadable via the Global Solar Atlas (GSA 2.2)
Download section feature with more than a thousand ready-to-use map images for countries and regions (example of Direct Normal Irradiation (DNI), Zambia) Zambia DNI Solar-resource-map GlobalSolarAtlas World-Bank-Esmap-Solargis.png
Download section feature with more than a thousand ready-to-use map images for countries and regions (example of Direct Normal Irradiation (DNI), Zambia)

The Global Solar Atlas (GSA) is a free, online, map-based application that provides information on solar resource and photovoltaic power potential globally. It features the online interactive map tools, simplified photovoltaic (PV) power calculator, reporting tools and the extensive download section. It is intended to provide policy makers, academia, and renewable energy stakeholders to raise awareness in the solar energy domain, support the development of policies and plans, and for initial zoning and site identification purposes.

Contents

Background

The Global Solar Atlas is provided by the Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP), a multi-donor trust funded program administered by the World Bank, and was developed under contract by Solargis, a provider of solar resource data and photovoltaic (PV) energy evaluation services. [1]

The GSA provides an interactive map of solar resource and photovoltaic power potential and a variety of other environmental data relevant for understanding the practical and technical potential of solar power systems at any given geographic location. For the preliminary planning of photovoltaic power plants, users can easily calculate PV energy yield for a defined photovoltaic energy system. The results are presented in the form of reports and downloadable data files. The GSA also features a rich download section, organized on the level of countries or regions. It involves the popular solar resource maps in multiple languages, country fact-sheets and spatial data in a standard GIS formats. [2]

The Global Solar Atlas was launched by the World Bank and ESMAP in January 2017 in partnership with the International Solar Alliance. [1] [3] [4] [5] [6] An improved version of the Global Solar Atlas (GSA 2.0) was launched in October 2019, with two further updates (GSA 2.1 and GSA 2.2) since then. All data and map products within GSA are licensed under the CC BY 4.0 licence. [7]

The Global Wind Atlas is the parallel activity with comparable services for the wind power sector. The aim of both platforms is to support the scale up of renewable energy sources in the global energy mix, as mandated under Sustainable Development Goal 7.[ citation needed ]

Methods and data

The solar resource data is supplied by the Solargis model. [8] [9] The model uses data from five geostationary satellites to calculate the attenuation effect of clouds and additional variables characterising the state of the atmosphere (such as aerosols/atmospheric pollution and water vapour). The history of 10/15/30-minute time-series of solar irradiance data is aggregated into long-term yearly or monthly averages, representing the climate reference. Data is available between the parallels 60°N and 55°S in the form of gridded data (rasters) with the nominal pixel size of 250 m. It is validated through ground-based measurement campaigns where possible. [10] Several independent comparisons of solar radiation databases have been performed in recent years. Solargis has been repeatedly identified as the best performing database. [11] [12] [13] [14]

A PV power simulator is also operated by Solargis, and it calculates the conversion of the solar resource to electric power considering also the impact of air temperature, terrain horizon, ground albedo, as well as the configuration of the pre-selected PV power systems. Besides long-term yearly averages, the PV simulator also provides long-term monthly and hourly statistics. [2]

Features

Online map-based application: [2]

Download section: [2]

Usage

The Global Solar Atlas website serves over 23,000 users per month according to data from Google Analytics (June 2020). Data from GSA has been used in the number of scientific studies and R&D programmes. Only in 2019, Google Scholar noticed more than 200 individual scholarly literature, referring to GSA sources. It is regularly cited by those looking to highlight the solar resource potential globally, in a country or region, [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] or to compare the resource potential between countries. [15] [21] [22]

In addition, the data has or is being used by a number of other tools or studies as follows:

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Photovoltaics</span> Method to produce electricity from solar radiation

Photovoltaics (PV) is the conversion of light into electricity using semiconducting materials that exhibit the photovoltaic effect, a phenomenon studied in physics, photochemistry, and electrochemistry. The photovoltaic effect is commercially used for electricity generation and as photosensors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Solar irradiance</span> Measurement of electromagnetic radiation

Solar irradiance is the power per unit area received from the Sun in the form of electromagnetic radiation in the wavelength range of the measuring instrument. Solar irradiance is measured in watts per square metre (W/m2) in SI units.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Solar power by country</span>

Many countries and territories have installed significant solar power capacity into their electrical grids to supplement or provide an alternative to conventional energy sources. Solar power plants use one of two technologies:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Solar power in India</span> Overview of solar power in India

Solar power in India is a fast developing industry. The country's solar installed capacity was 61.625 GWAC as of 31 October 2022. Solar power generation in India ranks fourth globally in 2021.

For solar power, South Asia has the ideal combination of both high solar insolation and a high density of potential customers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Solar power</span> Conversion of energy from sunlight into electricity

Solar power is the conversion of energy from sunlight into electricity, either directly using photovoltaics (PV) or indirectly using concentrated solar power. Photovoltaic cells convert light into an electric current using the photovoltaic effect. Concentrated solar power systems use lenses or mirrors and solar tracking systems to focus a large area of sunlight to a hot spot, often to drive a steam turbine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Photovoltaic system</span> Power system designed to supply usable electric power from solar energy

A photovoltaic system, also PV system or solar power system, is an electric power system designed to supply usable solar power by means of photovoltaics. It consists of an arrangement of several components, including solar panels to absorb and convert sunlight into electricity, a solar inverter to convert the output from direct to alternating current, as well as mounting, cabling, and other electrical accessories to set up a working system. It may also use a solar tracking system to improve the system's overall performance and include an integrated battery.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Solar power in Canada</span> Overview of solar power in Canada

Historically, the main applications of solar energy technologies in Canada have been non-electric active solar system applications for space heating, water heating and drying crops and lumber. In 2001, there were more than 12,000 residential solar water heating systems and 300 commercial/ industrial solar hot water systems in use. These systems presently comprise a small fraction of Canada's energy use, but some government studies suggest they could make up as much as five percent of the country's energy needs by the year 2025.

Wind resource assessment is the process by which wind power developers estimate the future energy production of a wind farm. Accurate wind resource assessments are crucial to the successful development of wind farms.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Concentrator photovoltaics</span> Use of mirror or lens assemblies to generate current from multi-junction solar cells

Concentrator photovoltaics (CPV) is a photovoltaic technology that generates electricity from sunlight. Unlike conventional photovoltaic systems, it uses lenses or curved mirrors to focus sunlight onto small, highly efficient, multi-junction (MJ) solar cells. In addition, CPV systems often use solar trackers and sometimes a cooling system to further increase their efficiency.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rooftop solar power</span>

A rooftop solar power system, or rooftop PV system, is a photovoltaic (PV) system that has its electricity-generating solar panels mounted on the rooftop of a residential or commercial building or structure. The various components of such a system include photovoltaic modules, mounting systems, cables, solar inverters and other electrical accessories.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Solar power in Italy</span> Overview of solar power in Italy

Italy's solar power generation capacity is one of the largest in the world, with its 22.56 GW putting it sixth, just ahead of Australia. In 2019, Italy set a national goal of reaching 50 GW by 2030. In 2022, Italy is anticipating more than 3 GW of new capacity, which will be the largest addition to solar generation since 2012.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Energy in Slovenia</span> Overview of the production, consumption, import and export of energy and electricity in Slovenia

Total primary energy supply (TPES) in Slovenia was 6.80 Mtoe in 2019. In the same year, electricity production was 16.1 TWh, consumption was 14.9 TWh.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Solar power in Thailand</span>

Solar power in Thailand is targeted to reach 6,000 MW by 2036. In 2013 installed photovoltaic capacity nearly doubled and reached 704 MW by the end of the year. At the end of 2015, with a total capacity of 2,500-2,800 MW, Thailand has more solar power capacity than all the rest of Southeast Asia combined.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Solar power in Africa</span>

Africa is often considered and referred as the "Sun continent" or the continent where the Sun's influence is the greatest. According to the "World Sunshine Map", Africa receives many more hours of bright sunshine during the course of the year than any other continent of the Earth: and many of the sunniest countries on the planet are in Africa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Solar power forecasting</span> Power forecasting

Solar power forecasting is the process of gathering and analyzing data in order to predict solar power generation on various time horizons with the goal to mitigate the impact of solar intermittency. Solar power forecasts are used for efficient management of the electric grid and for power trading.

Rewa Ultra Mega Solar is an operational ground mounted, grid-connected photovoltaic solar park spread over an area of 1,590 acres (6.4 km2) in the Gurh tehsil of Rewa district of Madhya Pradesh, India. It started producing power in 2018 and reached its full capacity of 750MW in January 2020. The project was dedicated to the nation by the Prime Minister of India Shri Narendra Modi on July 10, 2020. It was the first solar project in India to break the grid parity barrier. It achieved a first-year tariff of INR 2.97/unit, while the previous record was INR 4.34/unit.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Floating solar</span> Systems of solar cell panels installed on a structure that floats on a body of water

Floating solar or floating photovoltaics (FPV), sometimes called floatovoltaics, is solar panels mounted on a structure that floats on a body of water, typically a reservoir or a lake.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Photovoltaic system performance</span>

Photovoltaic system performance is a function of the climatic conditions, the equipment used and the system configuration. PV performance can be measured as the ratio of actual solar PV system output vs expected values, the measurement being essential for proper solar PV facility's operation and maintenance. The primary energy input is the global light irradiance in the plane of the solar arrays, and this in turn is a combination of the direct and the diffuse radiation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Global Wind Atlas</span> Software tool to help identify locations for wind power generation

The Global Wind Atlas is a web-based application developed to help policymakers and investors identify potential high-wind areas for wind power generation virtually anywhere in the world, and perform preliminary calculations. It provides free access to data on wind power density and wind speed at multiple heights using the latest historical weather data and modeling, at an output resolution of 250 meters. It is owned and maintained by the Wind Energy Department of the Technical University of Denmark and in recent years has been developed in close partnership with the World Bank, with funding provided by the Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP).

References

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