Solar and Wind Energy Resource Assessment (SWERA)

Renewable sources of energy - solar and wind in particular - can meet several times the world's present and future energy demands. In well-endowed regions renewable energy could become an export commodity. Achieving this dual development-and-environment dividend is the cornerstone of UNEP's 'Solar and Wind Energy Resource Assessment'Well-established protocols exist to utilise satellite-derived observations and other weather data to produce assessments of solar and wind energy resource potentials in a given region. Simply put, these protocols rely on computer models of atmospheric dynamics, which provide estimates of solar irradiance and wind speeds. Modelling results can be visualised and manipulated through custom-built computer-based geographic information systems. programme.

The programme has championed several application tools for resource assessment data, which ultimately translate these data into information that supports investment decisions. Coupled with its clean energy finance programme, the Solar and Wind Energy Resource Assessment programme puts UNEP's efforts at the forefront of related initiatives aimed at bolstering the deployment of renewable energy technologiesThis type of assessment has become an indispensable resource for project developers seeking to determine the economic viability of a project. While, due to the 'public good' nature of it, renewable energy resource assessments are almost exclusively undertaken by governments, project developers increasingly finance, for example, project siting studies. Such early private sector involvement helps attract the funding needed to exploit the resources identified..

The United Nations Environment Programme continues to facilitate the development of renewable energy resource assessment studies in several developing countries. In the near future it may:

• Work with development aid agencies to make resource assessment a part of any renewable energy project they fund;
  
  
• Work with project financiers to develop analytical tools that better respond to their needs;
  
  
• Work with industry, R&D groups and policy-makers to develop quality standards of some sort;
  
  
• Work with relevant groups to determine which additional technologies (i.e. other than solar and wind) are mature enough when it comes to resource assessment techniques

For more information, see http://swera.unep.net