The weather modelling software can help countries and corporations progress towards carbon neutrality.

The Institute for Environmental Analytics and the Suriname Energy Chamber are working on a weather modelling platform, called EnergyMetric, for renewable forms of energy. The project in collaboration with the Caribbean Climate-Smart Accelerator aims to make the modelling and prediction of weather-driven events easier, aiming to assess the long-term viability of renewable energy sources that rely on weather, such as solar and wind power.

The Institute for Environmental Analytics was originally set up to help organisations that are facing environmental challenges using the data to see whether and provide de adequate solutions, as explained by Colin McKinnon, IEA’s chief executive officer.

The software EnergyMetric was developed to help developing countries – in particular, small-island developing states – to reach their ambitious climate targets. The platform gathers weather data and information from satellites, weather models, climate information and bundles and bring it altogether in a packaged tool to help people to make more informed decisions.

How does the weather modelling software works?

EnergyMetric is an online application that helps countries on their energy transition journey. The platform explores different options and scenarios and enables countries to define a plan, policy or roadmap in order to achieve a particular target.

Andrew Groom, IEA business development director, explains that EnergyMetric “it’s a strategic planning tool, which enables you to understand renewable generation potential”. In the tool you can select your location, choose the resources you are planning – such as solar or wind – with a set of technical parameters and financial parameters. This data alongside environmental information, land ownership and transmission and distribution infrastructure data will provide the user with a detailed weather analysis and insights for a strategic renewable energy plan.

Mauritius and the Seychelles are some of the island nations that already resourced to the weather modelling software. The data collected in these locations are very reliable, but with each different location comes different challenges in determining a strong and valid information.

While solar is a much steady resource, wind on the other hand is more difficult to model, as it is more variable. The EnergyMetric adopts a probabilistic approach and considers the uncertainty of each renewable energy source.

However, it is still a modelling software meaning that “it’s still a network with partial coverage”, alerts Colin McKinnon. The whole point of what we have been trying to do is quantify as accurately as we can this intermittency. Whether a project is successful or not is largely driven by the amount of energy it is producing”.

Read the full interview here.

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