RE Data Explorer User Applications From Around the World (Text Version)

[Text on screen: The RE Data Explorer is providing high-quality, no-cost renewable energy resource data sets to users all over the world for data-driven decision-making. A number of these users shared how valuable this data is for clean energy project development, planning, and research.]

[Rommel Glenn Mendova, Project Development Officer, Office of Sustainability, Bataan Peninsula State University, Philippines]

>>Rommel Glenn Mendova: The Himawari data set enabled our research to create a more robust data to be used in a multicriteria decision-making tool. Mostly we used the data on the university itself. We have calculated everything from the areas of the most suitable for solar PV installations and their corresponding theoretical solar generation.

[Cess Virtusio, Masters of Business Analytics Student, Kaplan Business School Australia, Philippines]

>>Cess Virtusio: I am very passionate about how analytics can drive renewable energy and create social impacts, especially for my nation in Southeast Asia. The objective was to use the RE Data Explorer to extract high-fidelity solar resource data along with meteorological data to train a machine learning algorithm that predicts solar irradiance. This algorithm can then be applied to other data sets from the Philippines and other parts of the world. And I aspire that in the future it will be used by organizations and communities in developing countries, such as my home country the Philippines, to encourage investment in solar infrastructure and educate and build livelihood for local communities.

[Lucero Luciano De La Cruz, Renewable Energy Analyst, Ministry of Energy and Mines, Peru]

>>Lucero Luciano De La Cruz: RE Data Explorer has been a very important tool to support long-term energy planning for Peru. Our country is in an area in the world with a high potential for renewable resources. Using data from the RE Data Explorer, our team published a document to allow agents in the energy sector—state, business, and academia—to have a technical reference for an evolution of solar energy potential.

[Luis Vilchez Léon, Coordinator of Energy Planning and Renewable Energy, Ministry of Energy and Mines, Peru]

>>Luis Vilchez Léon: We try to promote investments in every technology and every resource. And RE Explorer would make a good tool for investors to know more about the potential in our country.

[John Modin, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer, Glint Solar, Norway]

>>John Modin: We have a software that allows solar developers to find and evaluate utility-scale solar project sites. We’re using it for two different things: We have one site evaluation tool where the customers, solar developers go in, look for sites using different search filters that we have built. Solar resources is very important as part of that because we’re trying to build solar projects. And the second thing we’ve done is we have had a number of customer engagements where they’ve asked us to go deeper into specific areas and many of them in Southeast Asia. And here we use the Himawari data to figure out the feasibility of certain projects and it was the solar resource data we used. Of course we used also lots of other data layers to create a comprehensive picture of the site and the opportunity and help evaluate where on the site would be a good idea or if at all a good idea. One of the sites that we helped evaluate has been—they have decided to build there. That’s exciting.

[Luis Carvajal Fernandez, Sustainability Operations Specialist, Siemens Energy, Mexico]

>>Luis Carvajal Fernandez: For the factories that we have in Mexico we wanted to install solar PV, so for that one it was specifically about predicting how much it would generate. So that was a very useful tool and we put it inside our own internal tools based on what we extracted from the data sets. As part of the activities we have for social impact, we are trying to plan a brief visibility study for a solar impact project. So, we want it to be for communities, for local communities, that could benefit from solar and wind.

>>Rommel Glenn Mendova: I would absolutely recommend the use of the NREL Himawari data set for the Philippines. If the Himawari data set did not exist, we would be having trouble in the statistical robustness of the research.

>>Luis Carvajal Fernandez: One very good feature about this is that it’s really straightforward. You just pin it or put the area geographically, you kind of draw it, and then you get what you need.

>>Luis Vilchez Léon: I think it’s important for us because there is, behind the RE Explorer, there is support for modeling and data.

>>Lucero Luciano De La Cruz: The RE Data Explorer tool’s application allows the evaluation of the renewable energy potential of Peru and use in satellite data to better understand our country’s wind and solar resources. 

>>John Modin: If we didn’t have this data we would have to rely on some other hourly data, which is not as reliable. So we would have to explain to all of our customers that you can’t really trust this, and that would have been embarrassing. 

>>Cess Virtusio: I did not find any other tool that is seamless, extensive, customizable, and intuitive. It is actually the best in class. The RE Data Explorer made my life so much easier with its quick, no-cost, and convenient access to data. 

[Video cuts to RE Data Explorer, USAID, and NREL logos. Text reads: www.re-explorer.org. If you are interested in exploring opportunities to develop additional unique capabilities and data sets in collaboration with the USAID-NREL Partnership, contact us: usaid.nrel@nrel.gov.]

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