The consequences of rapidly rising global temperatures will be far-reaching and devastating for humans and the environment unless urgent action is taken globally to curb emissions. To this direction, the United Nations and the European Commission (EC) have set as its main sustainable development goals by 2030 to contribute to climate actions and ensure good health and well-being by providing universal access to affordable, reliable and modern energy services. EC Renewable Energy Directive establishes an overall policy for the production and promotion of energy from renewable sources in the European Union. As a result, renewables currently account for more than 22% of total global electricity generation, of which more than 400 GW produced from solar systems in 2017. This brings to the fore the simultaneous vital need for improved Earth Observation (EO) solutions for the continuous monitor of solar energy potential and fulfil the increasing integration of solar farms into the electricity grids, the load exchanges, as well as the efficient electricity transmission and distribution. Therefore, through joint solar energy implementation funded projects, the EC's renewable energy policy aims to set up a low carbon environment with relevant services and support by existing and new EO techniques dealing with accurate, nowcast, short-term (STF) and long-term forecast estimations of solar energy.
NOA, PMOD WRC, CEDARE, ARMINES, TSV
Power transmission operators and Distributors, (The Public Power Corporation Renewables S.A. (PPCR), the National Independent Power Transmission Operator S.A. (IPTO) of Greece), Environmental and Energy Ministries (The Ministry of Electricity and Renewable Energy of Egypt), Large and small scale solar PV parks and concentrated solar plants, Policy Makers, Industry
EUMETSAT's CM SAF and MSG (Cloud properties).
Launch of the new SENSE based and upscaled solar energy monitoring application for Europe and North Africa!
This real-time service uses and produces big data for 1.5 million pixels every 15 minutes based on the Solar Energy Nowcasting SystEm (SENSE) which was designed, developed and applied as a pilot in the framework of the EU-funded projects BEYOND, GEO-CRADLE and e-shape. SENSE exploits advanced technical capacities of Earth Observation data sources in combination with scientific measurement, radiative transfer and machine learning modeling results. Through E-SHAPE, the nowadays short-term forecasting techniques will be incorporated into SENSE, introducing the so-called nextSENSE showcase.
A service that will provide a Pan-European scale scientific information about solar radiation/energy forecast and business oriented information on management and planning on Distribution System Operators, private companies and individual solar energy related users.
The e-shape project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement 820852