Sunshine mapping from space means brighter solar energy future

[H. E. Taylor]

2005/06/29: ESA: Sunshine mapping from space means brighter solar energy future

How sunny is it outside right now - not just locally
but all across Europe and Africa? Answering this
question is at the heart of many weather-related
business activities: solar power and the wider
energy sector, architecture and construction,
tourism, even health care.

Today accurate and continent-wide scale
measurements of ground radiances are provided
every 15 minutes by ESA's Meteosat Second
Generation satellite.

Integrating this information with the business
practices of solar energy managers is the
objective of the ENVISOLAR project
(Environmental Information Services for Solar
Energy Industries), funded by ESA within the
framework of the Earth Observation Market
Development Programme (EOMD).

Solar energy has switched from a green aspiration
to a solid business. The solar market in
photovoltaics - the direct conversion of sunlight to
electricity - has an annual turnover of 600 million
euros in Germany and 1000 million euros in the
rest of Europe. The latter figure is predicted to
increase to 2500 million euros by this decade's
end. Furthermore, thousands of megawatt of
renewable energy potential are also available in
Africa, Asia and Central America as shown by
the Solar & Wind Energy Resource Assessment
(SWERA) project of the UN Environment
Programme (UNEP).
[...]
<http://www.esa.int/esaEO/SEM4Q82DU8E_economy_0.html>

<regards>
-het


--
"If you push on something hard enough, it will fall over."
-Fudd's First Law of Opposition

PV FAQ: http://www.autobahn.mb.ca/~het/energy/pv_faq.html
H.E. Taylor http://www.autobahn.mb.ca/~het/

 

[Glenn Martin]

If I've paid for and installed a PV setup, I'm going to run it every second
of every day to get maximum use out of it. I don't care if it's cloudy or
about small fluctuations. The only important thing from a practical view is
what insolation can I expect over a year.

Glenn Martin