Vaisala, an environmental and industrial measurement company and provider of renewable energy consulting services, says it has partnered with the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) to provide a new level of access to its global renewable energy resource data.
According to Vaisala, it has become the first business in the private sector to make its average annual solar irradiation and wind speed maps available for free download via IRENA’s Global Atlas for Renewable Energy. In doing so, the company states that IRENA and Vaisala are giving developers, policymakers and researchers access to globally consistent resource data that can be used in setting policy and performing initial project planning and prospecting.
Vaisala says that the new download feature in IRENA’s Global Atlas platform will allow users to integrate its extensive wind and solar data sets for the first time into their own software and modeling programs, enabling developers to conduct offline analysis to inform prospecting efforts in new territories and, ultimately, influence critical investment decisions.
The data will also feed into high-level planning for transmission infrastructure; help regional governments structure renewable energy policy; and provide a resource for nonprofits, non-governmental organizations and public agencies.
“It’s our goal and responsibility to minimize investment risk for the industry throughout the lifecycle of projects; from the early-stage prospecting efforts, this data enables the more detailed financial forecasts and real-time operational support we provide to clients,” says Pascal Storck, global manager of energy services at Vaisala. “Working with IRENA as part of the Global Atlas initiative gives us the opportunity to maximize the reach of our global wind and solar data sets to the benefit of the international renewable energy development community and its ambitions in promising new markets.”
Vaisala’s data can be downloaded from the Vaisala map in the Global Atlas in GeoTIFF format in portions of 4 MB. Vaisala’s global wind data set provides average annual wind speeds at a height of 80 meters and a resolution of 5 kilometers, based on 10 years of hourly data from advanced simulations and validated against ground measurements.
