A free real-time hourly tilted solar irradiation data Website for Europe

TL;DR

This paper introduces Soweda, a free web platform providing real-time hourly tilted solar irradiation data across Europe, generated from clear-sky models and weather data, enabling accessible solar resource estimation.

Contribution

It presents the first online platform offering free, real-time hourly solar irradiation data for Europe, combining simulations and weather data for broad accessibility.

Findings

Data is publicly available via Soweda

The method provides reasonably accurate estimates for general use

This approach reduces costs for solar energy planning

Abstract

The engineering of solar power applications, such as photovoltaic energy (PV) or thermal solar energy requires the knowledge of the solar resource available for the solar energy system. This solar resource is generally obtained from datasets, and is either measured by ground-stations, through the use of pyranometers, or by satellites. The solar irradiation data are generally not free, and their cost can be high, in particular if high temporal resolution is required, such as hourly data. In this work, we present an alternative method to provide free hourly global solar tilted irradiation data for the whole European territory through a web platform. The method that we have developed generates solar irradiation data from a combination of clear-sky simulations and weather conditions data. The results are publicly available for free through Soweda, a Web interface. To our knowledge, this is the first time that hourly solar irradiance data are made available online, in real-time, and for free, to the public. The accuracy of these data is not suitable for applications that require high data accuracy, but can be very useful for other applications that only require a rough estimate of solar irradiation.