Around 70% of solar PV resource analysts currently use spreadsheets or non-specialist tools for visualisation, quality management and analysis of vital solar resource data
New solar-specific software Solargis Analyst is designed to improve productivity, tackle quality management issues, and support effective decision-making
Solargis, the trusted reference point for solar data and software services, has announced the launch of the first software platform designed specifically for visualisation, quality management and analysis of solar data.
Solargis Analyst, developed in-house by the Solargis data analysis team, aims to empower solar engineers and decision-makers to improve the efficiency of complex resource analysis, identify and fix errors in measurements, and ultimately improve their technical and financial decisions.
As solar portfolios grow in size and complexity, so does the challenge of managing the consistency and quality of measured solar data streams during project development and operation. The scale of this challenge is significant, as most solar projects worldwide suffer in some way from unreliable solar resource data.
In particular, solar resource analysts face a constant struggle to reconcile ground-based measurements with satellite-model time series. Errors in solar measurements affect the accuracy of performance estimates, ultimately impacting financial returns. Furthermore, data quality issues also affect long-term operational decision-making, where inaccurate inputs hamper the effective development and management of solar portfolios.
Despite these concerns, it is estimated that 70% of solar resource analysts worldwide are still using spreadsheets or other non-specialist tools designed for other technologies to manage their solar data. The market needs a quicker, more efficient and solar-specific tool for visualising and analysing its key data streams.
Addressing this market need, Solargis Analyst has been developed as a materialisation of the knowledge and experience of the Solargis team, working with solar measurements for over 1000 sites worldwide. The early development process has been supported by the solar resource analysis team at pilot customer Iberdrola.
Solargis Analyst provides a single user-friendly platform for effective management, visualisation and analysis of solar resource and meteorological data – significantly reducing analysis time, simplifying complex data analysis procedures and facilitating teamwork.
In turn, the platform enables users to tackle all the most common quality management challenges, including unreliable, incomplete and inconsistently formatted data, while meeting demand from the industry for tools specifically based on solar physics and advanced data science.
In combination with the technical support and consultancy services already offered by Solargis, this ultimately enables solar PV stakeholders to increase confidence in financial transactions using quality-approved and validated data, and improve the accuracy and transparency of their performance assessments.
Elena Rodríguez, Solar Resource Analyst at Iberdrola, a pilot user of Solargis Analyst, said: “As we aim to conduct best-practice solar measurement and data analysis campaigns for our growing global asset base, it’s imperative that we empower our solar resource analysis team, so that we can collectively have confidence in the quality of the data that underpins our strategic decision-making. Solargis has successfully delivered a software platform that helps us meet this objective and will no doubt contribute to improved data quality standards across the sector.”
Marcel Suri, the CEO, of Solargis, added: “Solargis Analyst is a tool that has been developed by solar resource specialists for solar analysts and decision-makers. Our team grapples daily with the challenges faced in reconciling inconsistent ground-based measurements with satellite time series, and we have aimed to distil 20+ years of our experience in the field into software that will dramatically increase the efficiency of solar data visualisation, analysis and quality management.”
Trial access to Solargis Analyst is currently available to all Solargis data customers until the end of June 2022. For more information, please visit https://solargis.com/analyst.
