We have just added the Global Solar Atlas on to WWF-SIGHT. The Global Solar Atlas provides long-term averages of solar resource (global, diffuse and direct normal) and was funded by the The World Bank and the International Finance Corporation.

Interactive map of the Global photovoltaic electricity output(Click on top left of the map for more info).

The World Bank and the International Finance Corporation, collectively The World Bank Group, have provided this Global Solar Atlas, to support the scale-up of solar power. This work is funded by the Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP), a multi-donor trust fund administered by The World Bank and supported by 13 official bilateral donors. It is part of a global ESMAP initiative on Renewable Energy Resource Mapping that includes biomass, small hydro, solar and wind.

The Global Solar Atlas provides long-term averages of solar resource (global, diffuse and direct normal), the principal climate phenomena that determines solar power generation. Understanding solar resource is crucial for the development of solar energy applications. In particular for the solar power sector, Photovoltaic (PV) technologies typically require an analysis on Global Horizontal Irradiation (GHI) and Global Tilted Irradiation (GTI, i.e. solar radiation received by the surface of photovoltaic modules). On the other hand, solar thermal energy technologies, such as Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) and Concentrated Photovoltaics (CPV), rely on Direct Normal Irradiation (DNI). Air temperature (TEMP) is also shown as it is the second most important climate variable determining the performance efficiency of solar power systems. Terrain elevation, relative to the sea level (ELE), also determines the choice of a site and performance of the solar energy system.

Photovoltaics (PV) is the most widely applied and also most versatile technology. Therefore this Atlas shows an indicative estimate of yearly average PV power generation values for three types of PV system: (i) small residential rooftop, (ii) distributed, or medium-size commercial roof-mounted system, and (iii) large or utility-scale PV power plant. The PV electricity simulation algorithm, incorporated in the Atlas, provides an approximate estimate of the potential photovoltaic energy (PVOUT), which can be produced at any location covered by the interactive map.

The underlying solar resource database is based on up to 22 years of satellite data, and has been validated using high quality ground-based measurement data where this exists.

While the data powering the Global Solar Atlas is the most recent and most accurate currently available, it is not fully validated in many developing countries due to the lack of ground-based measurement data from high precision solar radiation sensors.

Read the press release here.

The data, maps and software simulation tool are developed by Solargis.