Global Atlas for Renewable Energy: Overview of Solar and Wind Maps

The Global Atlas for Renewable Energy (Global Atlas) is a free online resource-assessment tool intended to help policy makers and investors appreciate the extent of the renewable energy resources at their disposal in each country or region.

It stems from an initiative coordinated by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), aimed at closing the gap between nations with access to the necessary datasets, expertise and financial support to evaluate their national renewable energy potentials, and those countries lacking such elements. The Global Atlas was initiated in partnership with the Multilateral Solar and Wind working group of the Clean Energy Ministerial. As of January 2014, 39 countries and more than 50 institutes and partners were contributing to the initiative.

The Global Atlas provides access to the datasets and methods to allow a first screening, to identify areas of opportunity where further assessments can be of particular relevance. It enables the user to overlay information listed in a catalogue of more than 1,000 datasets, and to identify areas of interest for further investigation. While the Global Atlas started out with solar and wind energy, it is being to encompass all renewable energy resources.

Global Atlas for Renewable Energy: Overview of Solar and Wind Maps presents an extract of the datasets hosted by the Global Atlas. All information published in this booklet is available through the Global Atlas interface. IRENA is continuously adding information to the system. IRENA wishes to thank the data providers of the Global Atlas for making this publication possible.