Development of a data management platform and open-source data analysis library for wind & solar resource data.

Project Description

By combining expertise in wind and solar data analysis with current best practice in the development of scalable and resilient software systems, this project will deliver a cloud-based platform and open-source library for the integration, dissemination and analysis of measured wind and solar data. National wind maps are limited in accuracy due to their wide extent and the limited number of measurement points available for calibration. Over the years, BrightWind has compared existing SEAI wind maps with data from more than 70 meteorological masts and identified errors of up to 20%. Calibration and validation data from more measurement stations is required to improve the numerical models upon which these maps are based. 4GW of additional wind energy capacity is expected in Ireland by 2030. BrightWind estimates that these projects will require approximately 200 new meteorological masts, not to mention new measurement stations to support solar projects. Combined with historic and currently deployed measurement stations, this represents a great opportunity for the improvement of national wind and solar reference maps and short-term energy forecasting. To date, perceived commercial sensitivities in the renewable energy industry have also led to the parallel development of similar data analysis tools owned by individual stakeholders. Open source analysis tools have the potential to remove this barrier to entry for data scientists and new renewable energy project developers.