Making that first step and switching to renewable energy is sometimes quite difficult. Probably not so much when it comes to fitting solar panels or placing a wind turbine in your back garden, especially since you can make both yourself with simple materials from your local DIY store.
But if you’re a major policy maker or an investor, who is considering to put lots of money into a new plant, then it gets hard. A new tool, which helps everyone assess the availability and extent of renewable energy resources, is now available online and might actually be exactly what these guys, or anybody for that matter, need. It is called The Global Atlas for Renewable Energy and it shows the potential and availability of these resources per geographical region.
The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) are the guys coordinating the project. In partnership with the Multilateral Solar and Wind working group of the Clean Energy Ministerial, the agency was able to gather all necessary data for 39 countries around the world. With the generous contribution of around 50 international institutes, the Global Atlas shaped up to be the first ever mean, which provides everything needed to make an initial screening of potential locations.
The Global Atlas, which can be downloaded here, not only visualizes, but also allows overlaying and sieving through the incredible 1,000 datasets that are made available. The available information is sufficient enough to help identification of potential relevant areas of interest.
Initially planned to include only solar and wind resources, the Global Atlas grew to include data on all renewable energy resources, thanks to all contributing partners. What is more, it is not a one-off project. Data is continuously added and kept up to date by IRENA.
What a wonderful initiative. You should definitely check it out.
Image (c) IRENA
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