Data-Driven Planet #30 — How the Clouds Really Impact Solar Energy
Scientists recently discovered that we have overestimated the negative impact of some types of clouds on solar energy. Studies have typically looked at just one cloud type: warm, low clouds. This leaves out a great diversity of clouds made of both water and ice, such as massive, heaped thunderheads. A recent study addressed this gap.
“Icy clouds may actually increase, not decrease, the amount of solar energy that reaches Earth.”
— Emily Underwood, Earth & Space Science News
Some clouds may not reflect as much sunlight as previously thought. On average, 70 percent of the world is cloud-covered. Considering a rising share of solar energy, it’s important to understand how clouds affect the efficiency of PV panels. Thanks to NASA’s “A-Train”, a constellation of six satellites that flies in formation, researchers were able to estimate the extent to which aerosols in different cloud types affect albedo and thermal infrared radiation. It turns out some types of clouds — like convective clouds and clouds with icier tops — reflect less solar radiation than previously thought.
Growth in renewable energy installation despite the smaller investments. In 2016, investment in clean energy fell to $287.5B, an 18% drop from a record $348.5B in 2015. However, despite this drop in investment, new build of clean energy projects increased–partly due to cost-competitiveness improvements in solar and wind equipment–meaning that more can be installed for the same price. These are important dynamics to understand when evaluating impact of future investments to the renewable energy total output such as China’s announcement to invest further $100 billion in wind power by 2020.
How blockchain can disrupt the utility industry. The utility industry is risk-averse to innovation because of its premise to provide stable, secure, and reasonably priced access to electricity. Blockchain, at its heart, is a self-sustaining, peer-to-peer database technology for managing, reducing, and eliminating intermediaries, and recording transactions with no central clearinghouse involvement. Seyi Fabode has written an easy-to-read story about how blockchain technology can improve utilities by speeding up the whole supply chain, while bringing down the operational costs.
Businesses harnessing climate data to sustain profits. Climate changes much more slowly than the seasons, but in a similar way it affects many industries. The greater impact of change and the availability of better data has made climate change risk assessments part of everyday business strategies. State Street, one of the biggest investment funds, is pressing its portfolio companies to disclose more information about how they are preparing for the impact of climate change on their businesses since it can have a material long-term impact on a company’s ability to generate returns.
Have you ever wondered how weather forecasts are created? Planet OS engineer Andres Luhamaa created a nice demonstration showing how to quickly build a weather forecast notebook with GFS model data by using the free Planet OS API. You will be able to go from raw data to animated weather maps and graphs with just a few simple commands. Accessing the raw data means that you are not limited to just creating weather forecasts, but you can run your own dedicated analysis or models on top of the data. If you are willing to learn more about using Python for processing weather data, you should look at the recently published Python Data Science Handbook, which is is freely available on Github.
Thanks for reading! In Planet OS we provide big data infrastructure that helps renewable energy companies improve their business results. To keep the industry engaged, each week we publish a carefully curated list of news we find important. Focused on the intersection of big data, Earth science, energy, and IoT, the Data-Driven Planet newsletter includes the week’s most notable developments in the market.
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