U.S. Division of Power & U.S. Geological Survey Launch On-line Public Database of Giant-Scale Photo voltaic Services

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the U.S. Division of Power’s (DOE) Lawrence Berkeley Nationwide Laboratory (LBNL) launched the biggest and most complete database so far on large-scale photo voltaic power initiatives in america. The U.S. Giant-Scale Photo voltaic Photovoltaic Database (USPVDB) consists of the placement, dimension, and different traits of large-scale photo voltaic initiatives. This new public useful resource will allow researchers to watch developments in large-scale photo voltaic improvement in addition to inform siting and planning for future deployment, contributing to the Biden-Harris Administration targets to decarbonize the electrical energy sector by 2035.sector by 2035.

“Practically 4,000 photo voltaic programs are mapped on this database, offering an important new asset for researchers, power planners, authorities, and the photo voltaic trade,” mentioned Jeff Marootian, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Power Effectivity and Renewable Power. “The abundance of detailed data on this database will assist us enhance the accountable siting of large-scale photo voltaic power initiatives throughout the nation to learn communities and meet our local weather targets.”

Floor-mounted photo voltaic may require 5.7 million acres by 2035 and as a lot as 10 million acres in 2050 to be able to obtain the Administration’s decarbonization targets. The USPVDB is a part of DOE’s ongoing analysis to cut back the associated fee and perceive the impacts of siting photo voltaic and to develop methods for maximizing advantages from large-scale photo voltaic amenities to host communities.

The USPVDB is a complete dataset of U.S. large-scale photo voltaic photovoltaic (PV) power venture places and traits that makes the information simpler to entry and extra correct than current datasets. Since 2020, DOE’s Power Info Company has hosted an interactive database with coordinates of the central level of large-scale photo voltaic amenities. The USPVDB augments this data by offering knowledge on the whole footprint space and detailed attributes of every facility, together with panel know-how sort, axis sort, yr of set up, and era capability. The dataset consists of ground-mounted photo voltaic amenities constructed by means of the tip of 2021 with capacities better than 1 megawatt direct present. It consists of greater than 3,900 large-scale photo voltaic ground-mounted amenities in 47 states and D.C.

The USPVDB incorporates attributes from the Environmental Safety Company’s RE-Powering knowledge that present descriptions of facility web site sorts, together with whether or not it’s a greenfield, or has earlier, present, or suspected contamination. It additionally identifies agrivoltaic websites, which find agriculture underneath or between photo voltaic panels, with knowledge from the Nationwide Renewable Power Laboratory’s Modern Photo voltaic Practices Built-in with Rural Economies and Ecosystems (InSPIRE) agrivoltaics program.

Researchers, decision-makers, and different stakeholders can use the information to research the function of photo voltaic power in decarbonizing the U.S. electrical grid, enhance research on the interactions between PV amenities and the pure setting, plan investments in PV infrastructure, and extra. The dataset, which shall be up to date yearly, shall be downloadable in a number of codecs and accessible through a web-based map viewer.

This work builds on experience developed by means of the creation and upkeep of the DOE-supported U.S. Wind Turbine Database (USWTDB), which comprises places and technical specs for greater than 72,000 wind generators.

USGS and LBNL will host a webinar to elucidate the database and the net viewer November 16 at 1 p.m. ET. Register for the webinar. A paper describing the dataset may be discovered right here.

This work is funded by the DOE Photo voltaic Power Applied sciences Workplace (SETO) and the USGS Power Sources Program. Study extra about SETO’s photo voltaic power analysis, renewable power siting, and large-scale photo voltaic siting.

Courtesy of Power.Gov