One of the key activities in IRENA is the development of renewable readiness assessments (RRAs). An RRA is a holistic assessment of conditions for renewable energy deployment in a country, and the actions necessary to further improve these conditions. An RRA is a rapid assessment of how a country can increase readiness and overcome the main barriers to the deployment of renewable energy technologies. It covers all services (transport, heat, electricity and motive power), and sources of renewable energy, with countries selecting those of relevance. The RRA comprises a process and a methodology that includes completing a set of templates and a final report. On the occasion of the RRA Mauritania, the Global Atlas was presented, as a potential supplier of data, data infrstructure and education for zoning renewable energy hotspots.

1. L’Atlas Mondial des Energies Renouvelables
Application a la Mauritanie
Dr. Nicolas Fichaux, IRENA

2. Bridge the gap between nations having access to the
necessary funding, technologies, and expertise to evaluate
their national potentials, and those deprived of those
elements.
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3. Bridge the gap between nations having access to the necessary funding,
technologies, and expertise to evaluate their national potentials, and those
deprived of those elements.
 Access to data and methods
 Building capacities on strategic planning
 Mobilizing technical assistance
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4. 4
Albania, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Colombia, Denmark, Egypt, Ethiopia, Fiji island,
France, Gambia, Germany, Greece, Grenada, Honduras, India, Iraq, Iran, Israel, Italy,
Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kiribati, Kuwait, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Maldives, Mali,
Mauritania, Mauritius, Mexico, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco, Mozambique,
Namibia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Norway, Peru,
Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Seychelles, South Africa,
Spain, Sudan, Swaziland, Switzerland, Tonga, Tunisia, Turkey, UAE, Uganda, UK, United
Republic of Tanzania, Uruguay, USA, Vanuatu, Yemen, Zimbabwe.

5. Global Atlas
5
What share of my energy mix can
be supplied by renewable energy?
Where are the resources located?
What is the most cost-effective
combination of technologies?
What amount of investments does it
represent? How many jobs ?
Is there a large enough market for
sustaining a supply chain?

6. 6
Conceptual diagram of Renewable Energy Potentials (from NREL, 2012)
How competitive is it?
How much can it cost?
Where can it be
harvested? How much
power?
Where is the resource?
Complexity Standards
Private sector
interest Risks
• COUNTRY-DRIVEN
• LONG TERM PLANNING PROCESS
• COMMITMENT REQUIRED

7. Winds in Africa. Mesoscale 5km
basemap from 3TIER. Average
annual wind speeds at 80 m high.
The values can not be used
without validation, but the wind
patterns appear clearly, and are
consistent with other mesoscale
sources. The boxes attempt to
highlight areas with possibly
strong annual average wind
speeds.
This rough approximation does
not exclude the possibility of good
wind sites outside the red squares,
due to local effects not captured
by the mesoscale model.

8. 8
Data
bankability
Investor’s
interest
PUBLIC
SECTOR
EFFORT
Local
measurements
PRIVATE
SECTOR
EFFORT
Existing local
measurements
Data quality
Zoning
NOT
‘BANKABLE’
‘BANKABLE’

9. 9

10. Global Atlas in numbers
• 1 interface to access 1,100 datasets on 11 Geoservers
• 67 countries, of which 47 contributed to the project
• 100,000 sessions since Jan. 2013
• 1,000 registered users created 1,600 maps stored in the
system
• 150 daily visitors with peaks of 1,000+ visitors
• 2-days training module for 35 policy makers in 25 countries
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11. Some datasets of the Global Atlas
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12. Global Atlas 2.0

13. Global Atlas is an Integrated Global Spatial Data Infrastructure

14. 14
Global Atlas analysis

15. Application
Carte de Mauritanie:
http://irena.masdar.ac.ae/?map=1693
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16. Solar
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17. Solar time series - Nouakchott
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18. PV installation simulation - Nouakchott
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19. Wind
19

20. Winds > 7 m/s, population, grids, roads
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21. 21
Wind rose and frequency

22. Oct 2015 – Global Wind Atlas - DTU
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23. Oct 2015 – Global Wind Atlas - DTU
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24. Blackberry World, Windows Mobile, Google Play, soon on iOS
www.irena.org/GlobalAtlas
Potentials@irena.org

25. Calculation scheme for wind energy yield using
wind speed distributions and power curves
 Ei = Annual energy yield of wind class [Wh,
watthours], i = 1, 2, 3 …n
 ti = duration of wind speeds at wind class [h/a,
hours/year]
 Pi(vi) = Power of wind class vi of wind turbine
power curve [Watt]
 vi = wind class [m/s]
 PN = Nominal power of WEC [kW] at nominal
wind class vi [m/s]
 hi = relative wind class frequency in %
Source: J.liersch; KeyWindEnergy, 2009
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26. Calculation scheme for annual energy production
Ei = Pi(vi) * ti
E = E1 + E2 +…+ En
 E = Energy yield over one year
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J.liersch;KeyWindEnergy,2009

27. Shape of different wind speed distributions
• Weibull distribution:
shape factor k=1,25 and
A= 8 m/s
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• Weibull distribution:
shape factor k=3 and A=
8 m/s

28. Sample power curves of wind turbines
(82 m rotor diameter, 2 and 3 MW)
Source:Enerconproductinformation2014
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