Global Atlas for Renewable Energy: Newsletter | May 2016

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IRENA Releases Version 2.1 of the Global Atlas for

Renewable Energy. Read more

Webinar on new Version 2.1 Scheduled for May 18.

Read more

Data Download Now Available for Selected Datasets.

Read more

Print and Export Feature Now Available in the Global

Atlas. Read more

Social Media Buttons, Improved Search, and Fitness for

Use Indicators. Read more

Investment Opportunity Maps Now Available for Latin

America, the GCC, and Southeast Europe. Read more

IRENA Celebrates Five Years of Renewable Energy

Progress Read more

New Dashboards Released on IRENAs REsource. Read

more

IRENA Headquarters, Masdar City | P.O. Box 236 | Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirate
| Tel: +971 2 417 90700| Email: potentials@irena.org | www.irena.org

IRENA Releases Version 2.1 of the Global Atlas for Renewable Energy
On May 5, 2016, IRENA released version 2.1 of the Global Atlas for Renewable Energy. This new version
includes the following new features:

Data download feature (selected datasets)

Print and export image feature
Social media buttons
Improved map search algorithm
Fitness for use indicator

With these new features, the Global Atlas online platform now comprises a complete suite of services to
support initial renewable resource mapping and assessment, including an online GIS interface, datasets
for five renewable energy technologies that cover every country in the world, online analysis tools, print,
export, and data download.

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Webinar on Global Atlas Version 2.1 Scheduled for May 18

IRENA will be holding a webinar to demo Version 2.1 of the Global Atlas on May 18, 2016. The one-hour
webinar will include demos of the new features in the Global Atlas, including the print and data
download features. Please register here to participate in the webinar:
https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/1367497070513451780

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Data Download Now Available for Selected Datasets

Since the launch of the Global Atlas, users have requested offline access to the raw data to perform local
GIS analyses. For selected datasets, the Global Atlas now allows users to download data for a chosen
geographical area in blocks of 4 MB. The result is a GeoTiff file, with attached metadata. Just follow the
steps in the graphic below to try out the new feature.

How to access the new data download feature. Note: if the Download option is greyed out, it is not yet available for the
selected layer.

The following maps contain datasets that are currently available for download:
o
o
o
o
o
o

Global Wind Atlas (DTU) (map 103)

HelioClim3v4 solar data (ARMINES/MINES ParisTech) (map 529)
Uruguay National Solar Atlas (Solar Energy Laboratory, Uruguay) (map 1405)
Mozambique Solar Map (Eduardo Mondlane University) (map 1153)
Wind atlases by CENER (map 422)
All ESMAP country maps (World Bank Group)
Vietnam (map 1705)
Pakistan (map 1706)
Maldives (map 1707)
Malawi (map 1708)
Zambia (map 1709)
Tanzania (map 1710)
Ethiopia (map 2291)
Afghanistan (map 2292)

Papua New Guinea (map 2293)

Regional Suitability analyses (IRENA)
Latin America (map 2012)
GCC (maps 2146)
Southeast Europe (map 2411)

More datasets may be made available for download in the future. To request a specific dataset for
download, or to discuss making your own data available for download through the Global Atlas, please
email potentials@irena.org.

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Print and Export Image Feature Now Available in the Global Atlas
In the past, the only way to extract images from the Global Atlas was to take a screenshot, which often
resulted in poor graphical quality. The new print and export feature allows users to preview and edit a
print version of their map, and either print, export to Word, or download as images. The print layout
includes an editable map title, an optional legend, and a text field that is pre-populated with information
about the map layers displayed. The download image option outputs a zip file that contains separate
image files for each layer, as well as a composite image. This new feature can be accessed using the
new print button on the toolbar.

How to access the new print and export feature

How to use the new print and export feature

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Social Media Buttons, Improved Search, and Fitness for Use Indicators
Social Media Buttons
Its now easier than ever to share a map in the Global Atlas with your colleagues and network. Three
new buttons on the toolbar allow you to post to Facebook and Twitter with one click. A third button
displays the direct URL link to the map for easy access later, or to share via email or in presentations.

How to access the new social media buttons

Improved Map Search Algorithm

Following requests from users, we have improved the search algorithm used in the Map Gallery. When
searches are performed for a specific country, the search now ranks results to show maps with the
smallest coverage area first meaning that country-specific maps will appear higher in the search
results than regional or global maps. To see the regional and global maps, scroll all the way to the right
in the Map Gallery search results.
Fitness for Use Indicator (solar and wind)
As described in the Global Atlas Data Quality Strategy, IRENA has developed a data quality framework in
which each map in the Global Atlas is assigned a category describing the appropriate level of use for the
data. This categorization is based on criteria including data resolution, validation method, and temporal
coverage, and the fitness for use categories include EDUCATION, POLICY, POTENTIAL and BUSINESS.
As a first step in rolling out this strategy, users can now tag their own map with the appropriate fitnessfor-use category when they save it.

How to use the new fitness for use indicators

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Investment Opportunity Maps Now Available for Latin America, the GCC, and
Southeast Europe
IRENA has recently completed three regional suitability analyses to supplement the data contained in
the Global Atlas and help stakeholders in these regions better understand and develop the potential in
their region. The methodology assigns a numerical score to each square kilometre in the region based
on resource strength, grid distance, population density, topography, land cover, and protected areas.
Analyses have been completed for Latin America, the Gulf Cooperating Community (GCC), and
Southeast Europe, and a similar study for West Africa is currently in progress. Each study contains
analyses for wind and solar power, both grid-connected and off-grid. New maps have been added to the
Global Atlas showing the study results for Latin America, the GCC, and Southeast Europe.
Full reports are also available on the IRENA website at the following links:
GCC: http://www.irena.org/menu/index.aspx?mnu=Subcat&PriMenuID=36&CatID=141&SubcatID=688
Latin America:
http://www.irena.org/menu/index.aspx?mnu=Subcat&PriMenuID=36&CatID=141&SubcatID=687
Publication of the Southeast Europe and West Africa reports is forthcoming.

Example of a wind investment opportunity map for the GCC

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IRENA Celebrates Five Years of Renewable Energy Progress

On April 4, 2016, IRENA celebrated five years since its establishment as a full-fledged intergovernmental
organization. To celebrate this occasion, we released a special anniversary edition map that displays the
best global map layers available in the Global Atlas for five renewable energy technologies, as well as
our new suitability analysis layers, a commemorative anniversary layer, and several supporting layers.
IRENA is also organising several other initiatives to help note our anniversary, including a photo contest
and a set of interactive anniversary dashboards on the REsource portal.
The renewable energy sector has made great strides over the past five years, and the area of resource
assessment is no exception. Over the past five years, the resolution of publicly available resource data
has improved from 50 km to 1 km for wind data, and from 50 km to 3 km for solar data. IRENA is proud
that the Global Atlas initiative and consortium have helped facilitate this improvement by pushing the
limits of freely available resource data. Thank you to all our partners for helping us reach this important
milestone! You can track this and other renewable energy accomplishments by following
#rethenandnow on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

One of the new dashboards available on REsource

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New Dashboards Released on IRENAs REsource

Just in time to celebrate IRENAs 5th anniversary, REsource, the worlds largest and most comprehensive
repository of free renewable energy information, released a new version of its user interface. This new
version is even easier to use, and offers a more interactive and intuitive interface. One of the main
highlighted features is the redesigned data section, which holds a rich set of interactive dashboards. It
covers various topics including policies, finance, costs, employment, targets and other key issues in the
rapidly evolving sector of renewable energy. To access the dashboards, just visit REsource and click on
the Data & Statistics button to explore more dashboards on a variety of topics.

Users can easily view and create customized charts. E.g. Country Rankings dashboard. This dashboard ranks
countries/areas according to their renewable energy power capacity installed based on region, technology or year.
(Click on the image to view the dashboard on REsource)

Users can also export images of the charts, download data from charts and more. E.g. Renewable
Energy Targets dashboard. (Click on the image to view the dashboard on REsource)

Other newly released dashboards include: Investment Trends , Levelised Cost of Electricity 2010-2015,
Wind Costs, Solar PV Costs, Power Capacity Data Download, World Overview, Time Series and more.
Visit REsource to explore more dashboards.

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