An Open-Access Web-Based Tool to Access Global, Hourly Wind and Solar PV Generation Time-Series Derived from the MERRA Reanalysis Dataset

Wind and solar energy resources are an increasingly large fraction of generation in global electricity systems. However, the variability of these resources necessitates new datasets and tools for understanding their economics and integration in electricity systems. To enable such analyses and more, we have developed a free web-based tool (Global Renewable Energy Atlas & Time-series, or GRETA) that produces hourly wind and solar photovoltaic (PV) generation time series for any location on the globe. To do so, this tool applies the Boland–Ridley–Laurent and Perez models to NASA’s (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA) solar irradiance reanalysis dataset, and the Archer and Jacobson model to the MERRA wind reanalysis dataset to produce resource and power data, for a given technology’s power curve. This paper reviews solar and wind resource datasets and models, describes the employed algorithms, and introduces the web-based tool.