Weather data can be used to generate profiles for wind, solar and hydro power plants. Re-analysis or “hindcast” projects use state-of the art weather forecast models with long time series of weather observations. They create consistent series of weather data, often of decades and with a global scope. Reanalysis.org and NCAR provide a helpful overview of re-analysis models. Data are usually provided in GRIB or NetCDF format and can be very large in size (100s of GB).
- OPSD compiled a list of weather data sources and provides a script to download customized subsets of the MERRA-2 dataset
- Renewables.ninja allows users to download weather data (wind speed, solar irradiance, temperature) for specific locations based on MERRA-2 and satellite imaging data.
- The Hans-Ertel-Centre for Weather Research has published two preliminary reanalysis data sets (COSMO-REA6 and COSMO-REA2) containing the most often requested variables that may be used without any restrictions
- COSMO (Consortium for Small-scale Modelling), simulation model for weather in Europe, used for the official weather forecasts. The model is free to use for research applications
You may have a chance to get data directly from national weather services or participating universities/institutions and thus avoid having to run it yourself. For Germany, the current resolution is 2.8 km.
- The Climate Data Center (CDC) of the German Weather Service (DWD) has puslished a dataset of
- observed parameters from DWD stations,
- derived parameters at the station locations,
- gridded fields covering Germany,
- regional averages for Germany and its federal states,
- gridded fields covering Europe,
- global climate station data
- available at hourly, daily, monthly, annual or multi-annual resolution.
- The data is useable without restrictions provided the source "Deutscher Wetterdienst" is mentioned.
Projects to turn weather data into renewable power availability time series
Various projects exist that transform weather data into power availability time series for different solar/wind power plant model types: