Global Wind Atlas

The IRENA Global Atlas of Renewable Energy created a dedicated platform to serve GWA 1.0 data to a worldwide audience.

This was followed by a further release in September 2018 (GWA 2.2) that included a number of improvements to the user interface, a new tool for preparing and downloading poster maps, and various bug fixes.

The most recent release, in November 2018 (GWA 2.3) introduced three capacity factor layers, new wind roses, and improved calculation of power density, and the ability to download GIS files, among other features.

[8] The latest release of the Global Wind Atlas (3.0) was launched on October 25, 2019, featuring further methodological modeling improvements, all new raw data (based on 10 years of mesoscale time-series model simulations), data coverage spanning 200 kilometers offshore, two additional heights (data now at 10, 50, 100, 150 and 200 m above ground/sea level), as well as the introduction of the all new energy yield calculator, allowing users to a) specify a generic or custom wind turbine and b) create downloadable GIS-data for annual energy production, capacity factor, or full load hours for estimating power generation for any given point or area.

[9] The mesoscale modeling carried out by Vortex for GWA 2.0 uses ERA Interim meteorological re-analysis data provided by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts.