Knowledge of the solar energy resource is essential for the planning and operation of solar energy systems. In the past years a number of data bases giving information on solar resources have been developed, such as the European Solar Radiation Atlas (ESRA), the projects SoDa, Satel-Light, PVGIS, PVSAT, PVSAT-2 or Heliosat-3 and the Envisolar project of the European Space Agency (ESA). In addition national services were set up as Meteonorm by Meteotest in Switzerland and SOLEMI by DLR in Germany. This has lead to the situation that several different data bases exist in parallel developed by different approaches, various spatial and temporal coverages and different resolutions including those exploiting satellite data. The users comparing information from different data sources for the requested sites may end up with uncertainty that is difficult to deal with.
These multiple efforts have led to a fragmentation and uncoordinated access: different sources of information and solar radiation products are now available, but uncertainty about their quality remains. At the same time, communities of users lack common understanding how to exploit the developed knowledge.
The project MESoR started in June 2007 and aims at removing the uncertainty and improving the management of the solar energy resource knowledge. The results of past and present large-scale initiatives in Europe, will be integrated, standardised and disseminated in a harmonised way to facilitate their effective exploitation by stakeholders. The project will contribute to preparation of the future roadmap for R&D and strengthening the European position in the international field.
The project includes activities in user guidance (benchmarking of models and data sets; handbook of best practices), unification of access to information (use of advanced information technologies; offering one-stop-access to several databases), connecting to other initiatives (INSPIRE of the EU, POWER of the NASA, SHC and PVPS of the IEA, GMES/GEO) and to related scientific communities (energy, meteorology, geography, medicine, ecology), and information dissemination (stakeholders involvement, future R&D, communication).
The project MESoR is suppoted as a Coordination Action by the European Commission under contract number 038665 within the 6th framework programme.