nasa-gesdisc/es-publications-researchareas huggingface dataset:
Wind power potential over India using the ERA5 reanalysis (2023)

Indias growing installed capacity for electricity generation faces demands from surging domestic consumption, national energy security and obligations under climate change accords. It is exigent to increase focus on renewables as their share in net electricity generated may reach 22 % by 2030, against the goal of 40 % from non-fossil fuels by 2030 as pledged under the Paris Agreement. Wind energy is preferable at higher levels of renewables due to favourable capacity factors. Prior investigations necessary to develop wind farms are better achieved through reanalysis datasets than satellite-derived wind products, which are temporarily coarse and limited to off-shore regions. In this study, we estimate wind power potential at 100 m level over the Indian domain using data from the ERA5 reanalysis for 19792018 through the Weibull mixture distribution. Our findings indicate that Indias mainland (off-shore) regions have a wind power potential of nearly 7.2 TW (18.4 TW), considering just 3 % of the available area. Further, up to 53 TW is available for exploitation over sparsely vegetated areas, which extend up to 25 % of Indias mainland. Future efforts for exploiting wind energy should focus on the availability of wind resources and their proximity to energy-hungry regions.

Research areas: Energy Production/Use
Searching suitable areas for installing solar panels in Golestan province using observation, ERA5 and GEOS-5 data (2023)

Due to its special geographical location, Iran has a high potential for the use of renewable energy. At present, electricity in Golestan province is supplied from Neka and Aliabad Katoul power plants, which due to the increase in population, it is necessary to build new power plants. In this study, the annual and monthly solar energy atlas maps were prepared using solar radiation data recorded in meteorological stations, GEOS-5, and ERA5 data to help decision-makers to locate suitable places for the establishment of solar power plants in different parts of Golestan province. In recent years, along with other kinds of data, the use of reanalysis data of numerical forecasting models has become popular, especially for those areas which are not covered by satellites and also to fill data gaps. To reach the goal of this study, statistical gaps in meteorological station data in the selected period (from 2014 to 2020) have been filled using the ratio method; then RUN-TEST method has been used to test the homogeneity of the data. To check the accuracy of data, the Absolute Error (MAE), Mean Bias Error (MBE), Mean Square Error (RMSE), and Coefficient of Determination (R2) between actual radiation values and GEOS-5 data as well as ERA5 data were calculated. The results show that although the accuracy varies across different locations and periods in the province, in general both outputs are suitable for estimating solar radiation and the correlation coefficients in both methods are significant at 95% confidence level. Annual solar radiation zoning of Golestan province indicates the range of annual radiation varies from 1089 kW/m2/year in forested mountainous areas up to 1800 kW/m2/year in the southwestern heights where the average of total annual radiation is 1485 kW/m2/year. The region of maximum annual radiation is located in the southwestern heights of Golestan province. In this area, solar rays strike the ground more vertically than in the other parts of the province, and also it has a semi-arid and cold mountainous climate. Moreover, the northeastern region of Golestan province has suitable annual solar radiation (1500 to 1600 kW/m2) due to its semi-arid climate and the high annual sunshine hours. The overlap map of the received radiation of Golestan province with its topography shows the appropriate quality of zoning in this area. The results of this overlap map indicate that the annual solar radiation is minimum in forested and wet areas and is maximum in semi-arid and low rainfall areas of the province. Therefore, the northeastern and southwestern regions of Golestan province have a good potential for utilizing solar energy.

Research areas: Sun-Earth Interactions, Energy Production/Use
Assessment of solar energy potential in China using an ensemble of (2023)

Development of solar energy is one of the key solutions towards carbon neutrality in China. The output of solar energy is dependent on weather conditions and shows distinct spatiotemporal characteristics. Previous studies have explored the photovoltaic (PV) power potential in China but with single models and low-resolution radiation data. Here, we estimated the PV power potential in China for 20162019 using an ensemble of 11 PV models based on hourly solar radiation at the resolution of 5 km retrieved by the Himawari-8 geostationary satellite. On the national scale, the ensemble method revealed an annual average PV power potential of 242.79 kWh m2 with the maximum in the west (especially the Tibetan Plateau) and the minimum in the southeast (especially the Sichuan Basin). The multi-model approach shows inter-model spreads of 6 %7 % distributed uniformly in China, suggesting a robust spatial pattern predicted by these models. The seasonal variation in general shows the largest PV power generation in summer months except for Tibetan Plateau, where the peak value appears in spring because the high cloud coverage dampens the regional solar radiation in summer. On the national scale, the deseasonalized PV power potential shows a high correlation with cloud coverage (R2 = 0.71, p 

Research areas: Sun-Earth Interactions, Energy Production/Use
Comparative capacity of global mining regions to transition to a post-mining future (2022)

This paper focuses on the ability of regions where mining is concentrated to adapt to closure given the regional assets and the complexities of their association with declining production of various commodities. We propose a conceptual framework to examine the relative capacity of global regions to transition and prosper post-mining by analysing contextual factors and characterising the mining footprint in the regions. Public sources of geo-locatable data are used to define and locate mining regions in transition and to assess the interacting mining and contextual factors that enable or constrain their capacity to transition. The data-driven examination illuminates the comparative capacity of global regions confronting the challenge of mine closure. It engages with themes from regional studies, mine closure and transition studies to consider multidimensional aspects of regional transition.

Research areas: Energy Production/Use
Improving Solar PV Prediction Performance with RF-CatBoost Ensemble: A Robust and Complementary Approach (2023)

Although solar energy is renewable, environmental conditions can make it unpredictable, which makes it difficult to maintain a consistent supply of electricity. Accurate solar forecast techniques are essential to overcome this. Therefore, an efficient model for predicting solar irradiance and PV power output is presented in this study. The suggested model is especially designed for Agartala city in Tripura, India, where the installed capacity of Grid Interactive Solar Power is extremely low. The proposed model for solar irradiance prediction involves utilizing a combination of the Random Forest and CatBoost algorithms. The model is developed using 10 years of solar data and other relevant meteorological parameters with a 1-hour interval and assessed at various stages to make long-term monthly predictions. In addition, we compared this model to other existing models for solar irradiance prediction. The study showcased the efficacy of Random Forest and CatBoost algorithms when utilized individually and as an ensemble. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of the Random Forest and CatBoost ensemble, with an impressive accuracy improvement of 6% and an R2-score of 86%. Additionally, in terms of RMSE and MAE, the model demonstrates superior performance with lower values of 83.8466 and 45.4011, respectively confirms to the proposed model's viability and suitability for long-term solar radiation and PV power predictions.

Research areas: Sun-Earth Interactions
Comprehensive regionalization and potential water crisis for solar power development in arid and semi-arid regions of northwest China (2023)

Large-scale water scarcity and geo-environment disparity in arid and semiarid regions of northwest China may be the limitations of ambitious solar energy development. This study quantified water-energy conflict for photovoltaic (PV) and concentrated solar power (CSP) both in China and in this region, and assessed development suitability of solar power at municipal level. The results show that arid provinces faced intense water-energy conflict, 22.8 and 22.9 times higher than humid provinces for PV and CSP respectively. Enormous spatial differences in water-energy conflict existed in the region (PV, 1.5655.5; CSP, 2.21099.0). Considering both water-energy conflict and geo-environment, the region was divided into development zone (including water-surplus and water-deficit subzone) and limited zone. It is indicated that 58.666.4% of northwest China need to increase available water resources to meet demands for future solar energy development. This research perspective that solar power development should focus on water constraints in northwest China, together with zoning methodology outlined in this study, could provide a valuable reference for its development in arid regions or countries globally.

Research areas: Energy Production/Use
A new pattern to quantitatively evaluate the value of ecosystem services (2023)

Introduction
              Open-pit coal mining could disrupt the ecosystem and lead to the loss of service values for the ecosystem through direct occupation or indirect impacts on adjacent ecosystems.
            
            
              Methods
              In this research, we combined a new accounting system, gross ecosystem product (GEP), with spatialtemporal analyses to quantify the ecological variation and explore its driving factors in Pingshuo, a large-scale open-pit coal mining area in China. GEP is an aggregate accounting system that can summarize the value of provisioning, regulating, and cultural ecosystem services (ES) in a single monetary metric. The spatialtemporal approaches used in our study were known as exploratory spatial data analyses and interpretable models in machine learning. Both spatial and non-spatial data, including remote sensing images, meteorological data, and official statistics, were applied in the research.
            
            
              Results
              The results indicated the following: (i) From 1990 to 2020, the annual average growth rates of GEP decreased from 30.78 to 9.1%. Furthermore, the classified results of GEP revealed that the regions with rich ES quality rapidly reduced from 51.90 to 32.18%. (ii) Spatial correlation of GEP was significant, and the degree of spatial clustering was relatively high in the mining areas. Moreover, the mining areas also continually presented concentrated high-density and hot spot areas of GEP changes. (iii) The spatialtemporal effects were notable in the relationship between GEP and three socioeconomic factors, i.e., the mining effects, human activity intensity, and gross domestic product (GDP). (iv) The winwin development for both the economy and ecological environment in Pingshuo could be realized by restricting the annual growth rate of mining areas to between 4.56 and 5.03%.
            
            
              Discussion
              The accounting results and spatialtemporal analyses of GEP will contribute to the future regional sustainable development and ecosystem management in Pingshuo.

Research areas: Energy Production/Use
Assessing the effects of sugar maple tapping on lumber production (2023)

Production goals for certain stands previously used mainly to produce sugar maple (Acer saccharum Marsh.) lumber are being revised due to the growing demand for products made from maple sap. This paper therefore estimates the impacts that maple sap production may have for maple lumber production. We began by developing a model able to predict sugar maple lumber losses due to tapping for sap collection. We then used the model to simulate two management scenarios: one for timber production alone, and one for production of both lumber and maple sap in the same stand. The results suggest that the net harvested volume of lumber declines by approximately 40% in the co-production scenario, compared to the timber production scenario.

Research areas: Agriculture
0.01 to 0.5 Sun is a Realistic and Alternative Irradiance Window to Analyze Urban Outdoor Photovoltaic Cells (2023)

Solar cells have penetrated many cities as Building Integrated Photovoltaic (BIPV) or the energy source for standalone Internet of Things (IoT) devices. Traditionally, photovoltaic (PV) cells are evaluated using 1 sun irradiance. However, in a city, factors such as air pollution, cloudiness and cell installation orientation may attenuate the receivable solar energy. Also, the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of a PV cell is highly irradiance-dependent. Evaluating urban outdoor PV cells using 1 sun irradiance could lead to inaccurate prediction of PCE and overestimated output power in actual usage. Herein, we analyzed daytime irradiances of 11 cities located across the globe. Our results show that realistic irradiance (RI) in most cities is between 0.01 and 0.5 sun, reflecting the irradiance under a cloudy to mostly sunny sky. Under such an RI window, the PCEs of 9 different PV technologies were compared. 7 PV technologies have compromised performance. 2 PV technologies, organic and perovskite PVs, show enhanced PCE under the RI window and are favorable for urban outdoor applications. The potential of powering IoT devices by these PV technologies under sub-optimal irradiance conditions in cities is also highlighted.

Research areas: Sun-Earth Interactions, Energy Production/Use
Optimizing a solar-battery-plant for peak-time (9AM-10PM) operation with constant power output (2023)

With increasing penetration of renewable energies, dispatchable power plants are pushed out of the market. When the flexibilities to balance load and generation are depleted, new renewable systems need to be able to operate just like the fossil fuelled powerplants they replace and provide a guaranteed output. Hybrid powerplants combining a renewable energy source with storage can provide this constant power as well as associated grid services. In the case studied here, a constant power supply based on solar energy is necessary to support the island's energy demand. The goal was to find the most economic operation strategy for the energy management system and the optimal size of the solar farm and the battery system that fulfill the requirements of the underlying power purchase agreement. The chosen strategy and sizing are then tested through a 25-year simulation. The result was that the sizing of all components is coupled to the operation mode of the energy management system, and both determine the energy that can be provided to the grid. Here, the battery capacity should be slightly above 3 hours of the plant capacity resulting in operating the system at around 70% of its nominal power output in most days.

Research areas: Energy Production/Use
Fluctuations of discharge and hydropower potential in the upper Amu Darya under the background of climate change (2024)

Study Region
Upper Amu Darya (UAD).
Study Focus
The UAD has abundant hydropower potential (HP). This study focuses on the potential sites of small hydropower stations (sHPs) and explores the impact of future climate change on discharge and HP.
New Hydrological Insights for the Region
The conflict between water resources and hydropower in Central Asia is a key issue affecting regional development. Developing sHPs provides a new direction for alleviating energy shortages in Central Asia. Combining the hydrological model with the geographic information decision-making method, we have determined the potential sites for ten sHPs in the UAD and calculated the HP for each station. Based on future climate data from two shared socioeconomic pathways and four global climate models, we found that future precipitation and temperature are projected to increase, with precipitation increasing mainly in spring and winter. The average discharge will increase by 19.136.6% in the near-term (20312050) and by 29.7106.8% in the long-term (20712090). In addition, climate change has significantly increased HP in winter, and the increase of HP in relatively high altitudes is higher than that in low altitudes. This implies that the HP development prospect of UAD is broad in future, but for sHPs construction schemes, it is necessary to further consider the impact on both environment and society.

Research areas: Energy Production/Use
Carbon intensity of global crude oil trading and market policy implications (2023)

The energy mix transition has accelerated the need for more accurate emissions reporting throughout the petroleum supply chain. Despite increasing environmental regulations and pressure for emissions disclosure, the low resolution of existing carbon footprint assessment does not account for the complexity of crude oil trading. The lack of source crude traceability has led to poor visibility into the well-to-refinery-entrance carbon intensities at the level of granular pathways between producers and destination markets. Using high-fidelity datasets, optimization algorithms to facilitate supply chain traceability and bottom-up, physics-based emission estimators, we show that the variability in global well-to-refinery-entrance carbon intensities at the level of crude trade pathways is significant: 4.2214.1 kg-CO2-equivalent/barrel with a volume-weighted average of 50.5 kg-CO2-equivalent/barrel. Coupled with oil supply forecasts under 1.5 C scenarios up to 2050, this variability translates to additional CO2-equivalent savings of 1.56.1 Gigatons that could be realized solely by prioritizing low-carbon supply chain pathways without other capital-intensive mitigation measures.

Research areas: Energy Production/Use, Greenhouse Gases
A Preliminary Geospatial Assessment of the Rooftop Solar Photovoltaic Potential in Bandung City, Indonesia (2023)

The demand for energy is increasing significantly over the past few decades. Mostly, the energy is coming from fossil fuels. It should be noted that fossil energy is not environmentally friendly and non-sustainable energy. Hence, it is necessary to replace fossil energy with renewable and sustainable energy such as solar PV energy. Solar energy is one of the renewable energies that can choose to replace fossil energy sources. Urban areas are areas with higher energy requirements than rural areas, but the availability of vacant land in urban areas is very minimal to the installation of solar power plants. Hence, rooftop solar PV energy can be a solution in dense areas such as urban areas. Before installing a rooftop solar PV plant, it is necessary to investigate how much energy can be provided to meet daily needs. Furthermore, it is also essential to optimize the installation so more daily energy can be supplied. This research focuses on investigating the solar energy potential to meet the daily demand from time to time. Modeling of solar energy potential in each house is essential to determine how much energy can be provided by solar PV plants in several years. In this research, the temporal analysis is used to model the energy demand from solar PV plants. This research will integrate statistical data and remote sensing data. The availability and the demand energy of each house will be investigated thoroughly in this research. Furthermore, how much electrical energy can be supplied by solar PV rooftop is also considered in this research. This research is expected to be used by policymakers in developing renewable energy in the city of Bandung and will increase community participation in switching to renewable energy.

Research areas: Energy Production/Use
Spatiotemporal management of solar, wind and hydropower across continental Europe (2024)

Weather climate fluctuations cause large variations in renewable electricity production, which requires substantial amounts of energy storage to overcome energy drought periods. Based on daily hydroclimatic data and information about renewable power systems covering Europe, here we quantify the complementarity in the solar-wind-hydro energy components of the continental climate system. We show that the spatiotemporal management of renewable electricity production over Europe can induce a virtual energy storage gain that is several times larger than the available energy storage capacity in hydropower reservoirs. The potential electricity production matches the consumption by spatiotemporal management of suitable shares of solar and wind power complemented with the present hydropower. While the mixed renewable energy potential varies less than anticipated at the continental scale, utilization of the complementarity requires new continental electrical transmission lines and stable international trade. We highlight that management models need to consider incentives beyond national boundaries to appropriately benefit from continental climate conditions.

Research areas: Energy Production/Use
Assessment the Impact of Solar Panels on the Environment (2023)

Solar energy is a renewable energy source that is becoming increasingly popular in providing electricity for households and industrial production. Using solar panels also brings many benefits to human life. In particular, solar panels are advantageous in providing electricity to remote and isolated areas that do not have access to the national grid. However, like any other technology, solar panels also have particular environmental impacts that need to be taken into account. From reference sources, this study aims to make statistics and evaluate the impacts of solar panels on the environment. The analyzed results show that the land occupancy index of solar power is the least compared to other power sources for the power plant's life of more than 25 years.

Research areas: Energy Production/Use