An interactive map to calculate renewable energy production

For those who are interested in installing solar panels on a roof, or even a wind turbine, estimating in advance the amount of energy that will be generated can be a problem. The interactive web tool Renewables.ninja, developed by researchers at Imperial College London and from ETH Zürich, aims to make it easier to predict renewable energy production anywhere on the map.

The app is based on detailed weather information on wind speed and insolation collected by NASA over the past 30 years. To test the tool, the researchers who have developed the application have used it to estimate the productivity of all wind farms under construction or planned for the next 20 years in Europe, and the results have been published in the Energy. They have also modeled the production of solar panels in Europe every hour.

Notable companies such as the German utility RWE are already making use of the tool as a reference for their own models.