Atlas Global

IRENA

International Renewable Energy Agency

GLOBAL ATLAS FOR SOLAR AND WIND ENERGY
– A Collaborative Resource For Renewable Energy

T

he Global Atlas for Solar and Wind Energy
projectaims to create a collaborative internetbased Geographic Information System (GIS) for
wind and solar resources that can direct and enhance
cooperation on global scenarios and strategies and
supportdecision-making, especially in areas where
existing information is insufficient.
The idea of the Atlas, an initiative of the Clean Energy
Ministerial’s Solar and Wind Working Group, first
took shapein a series of international workshops in
2010. The CEM, a 20-year initiative backed by the
ministers of 24 countries to accelerate the global
transition to clean energy, has already evaluated aprototype and is refining it to better represent user
data needs and integrate additional tools and data
sets.
IRENA is playing a lead role in the creation of the
Atlas by working with otherinternational institutions, initially UNEP, which is providing financial and
in-kind resources. IRENA is also working to ensure
that end-user needs, especially those of Member
States, are fulfilled andthe programme achieves its
maximum impact on the deployment of renewable
energy technologies
Many other categories of partners are involved in this
ambitious project ranging from the leadcountries
of the CEM Multilateral Working Group (Denmark,
Germany and Spain) who are financially contributing, or providing significant in-kind contributions, to
data- and technology-solution providers,generally
technical institutes, private or public organisations
or owners of scientifically recognised datasets or
processes. Also important are end-users, initially
representatives of committedMember States, who
provide recommendations on the services they require, as well as providing access to information, and
supporting its collection.

W hy a Global Atlas?
An energy system with a...