Researchers release global map of renewable energy sites

Researchers at the University of Southampton claim to be the first to have mapped all solar and wind energy sites across the globe, which they said will provide a valuable resource to assess their potential environmental impact.
In a study published to Scientific Data , the researchers said the new mapping demonstrates both solar and wind’s infrastructure density in different regions and their approximate power output. The estimated share of renewable energy in global electricity generation was more than 26pc by the end of 2018, overwhelmingly led by wind turbines and solar panels.
“While global land planners are promising more of the planet’s limited space to wind and solar energy, governments are struggling to maintain geospatial information on the rapid expansion of renewables,” said lead researcher, PhD student Sebastian Dunnett.
“Most existing studies use land suitability and socioeconomic data to estimate the geographical spread of such technologies, but we hope our study will provide more robust publicly available data.”

Global distribution of solar and wind farms showing power output and landscape area. Image: University of Southampton

‘An invaluable resource’
Due to potential negative consequences that wind and solar sites could have on nearby ecology and wildlife, the researchers also hope that accurate mapping of their locations can give a clearer picture of their environmental footprint.
The map was built using data from the open-access, collaborative global mapping project, OpenStreetMap. The researchers then extracted grouped data records tagged ‘solar’ and ‘wind’ which were cross-referenced with national datasets in order to get a best estimate of power capacity and create their own maps of solar and wind energy sites.
This helped reveal Europe, North America and east Asia’s dominance of the renewable energy sector and the results correlated closely with official independent statistics of renewable energy capacity of countries around the world.
Speaking of the findings, study supervisor Prof Felix Eigenbrod said: “This study represents a real milestone in our understanding of where the global green energy revolution is occurring.
“It should be an invaluable resource for researchers for years to come, as we have designed it so it can be updated with the latest information at any point to allow for changes in what is a quickly expanding industry.”
A wind turbine . Image: chungking /Depositphotos
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