Capacity factor time series for solar and wind power on a 50 km^2 grid in Europe

This spatio-temporal dataset contains capacity factors timeseries for locations on a grid with 50km edge length in Europe. The data is resolved in one hour timesteps and comprises the years 2000--2016. It has been generated using Renewables.ninja and is based on MERRA-2 reanalysis data. For each of the ~2700 onshore location, it contains one time series for onshore wind turbines and five time series for PV installations with different orientations and tilts. PV time series exist for (1) installations on open fields, (2) installations on all possible rooftops, (3) south-facing and flat rooftops, (4) east- and west-facing rooftops, (5) north-facing rooftops. For each of the ~2800 offshore location there is one timeseries for offshore wind turbines.

Two GeoTIFF files contain spatial information of onshore and offshore locations. For each of the three technologies -- onshore wind, offshore wind, and PV -- there is one NetCDF file determining the temporal dimension and containing the data. The GeoTIFF and NetCDF files are linked through unique IDs for all locations.

This data serves as input data to euro-calliope, a model of the European electricity system.

The following parameters have been used to generate the timeseries:

resolution-grid: 50 # [km^2] corresponding to MERRA resolution
pv-performance-ratio: 0.9
hub-height:
onshore: 105 # m, median hub height of V90/2000 in Europe between 2010 and 2018
offshore: 87 # m, median hub height of SWT-3.6-107 in Europe between 2010 and 2018
turbine:
onshore: "vestas v90 2000" # most built between 2010 and 2018 in Europe
offshore: "siemens swt 3.6 107" # most built between 2010 and 2018 in Europe

CHANGELOG:

Version 3 (2022-05-18)

* Update spatial scope to include Iceland and its offshore EEZ.
* Update temporal scope to include 2017 and 2018.

Effect of increasing spatial scope is a slight change in the spatial position of the data points.

Version 2 (2020-06-18)

* Add time series for rooftop PV with different orientations.