How Solargis Analyst software helps Iberdrola to work with complex, diverse solar resource datasets

As Iberdrola plans to reach an installed renewable capacity of 95 GW by 2030, and is uniquely positioned with a renewables pipeline of 81.5 GW (36.6 GW in Solar PV), the company sought out Solargis’ latest software – Solargis Analyst – to provide accurate, pre-construction solar data analyses and ensure its procedures were harmonised across the global business.

We sat down with Elena Rodriguez Herrero, Senior Engineer at Iberdrola, to understand how Iberdrola Renewables was using Solargis Analyst and what benefits it had seen since the implementation of the software.

Hi Elena. Thanks for speaking with us today. To begin, could you please tell us more about your role at Iberdrola?

I work in the Global Development team at Iberdrola Renewables, helping different business units within the company develop solar projects. Our team’s focus is mostly on the pre-construction planning phase of a development, in which we work on identifying the financial and technical potential of projects before construction commences. Within this phase of business, it’s essential that we have access to highly accurate data that we can validate alongside longer-term models. It’s also essential that our methods are harmonised across our global team.

Why did Iberdrola initially seek out the Solargis Analyst software?

When we started working in solar a few years ago, we needed to quickly gain a deep understanding of the technical and financial opportunities of solar energy in different and geographically diverse parts of the world. Historically, however, there has been a lack of advanced software to do this, and, like many businesses, we were relying on traditional spreadsheets, scripts and visualisation tools that were not intended for the sector. These methods made it difficult to harmonise and share information across our teams, and analyses were costly and time-consuming.

We contacted Solargis as we knew that the company had extensive experience in solar, not only in satellite data but also in validating models across thousands of different solar meteorological sites across the globe. We knew that an important step for our business was to try to bring together advanced quality control, intuitive visualisation, and streamlined data management under the same roof. Solargis Analyst was an advanced system that would allow us to do so.

How is Iberdrola using Solargis Analyst?

As mentioned, we’re currently using Solargis Analyst in the pre-construction planning phase of projects to analyse the technical and financial potential of future projects. During this phase, we gather technical data that come from solar ground measurements, and which are reconciled with satellite data, subsequently helping us understand the future financial potential of those planned projects. Once this data is collected, Solargis Analyst allows us to verify the accuracy of the measured data thoroughly, ensuring that any errors are identified, and only valid data records are used during analyses.

Solargis Analyst allows us to treat the data we gather to ensure its correct and time references are accurate. All projects are evaluated in the same way for investment decisions, and Solargis Analyst allows us to streamline the analysis process of comparing multiple datasets and performing calculations – enabling analysts to work with complex, diverse datasets without needing to spend time creating new scripts. Once we have quality-controlled data, Solargis Analyst analyses it and extracts insights for us, which helps us make further technical and financial decisions.

How has the software performed?

The solar energy software is very powerful from a technical point of view. It provides huge analysis capabilities that we didn’t have with previous tools. Due to the experience of Solargis, and the company’s technical capabilities, the Analyst software is the best you can get in the market. Solargis Analyst also avoids human mistakes and errors when compared to spreadsheets and scripts as it helps us pull together reports and summaries automatically. This means less time on administrative tasks and more time spent delivering value for our stakeholders.

Solargis Analyst has performed well in helping us save time through harmonizing our methods. It’s important for everyone in our team to be using the same tool, and the Analyst software, which can store data and confidential project information, does so in a very safe way. Data is stored in a central database, which also provides Iberdrola an efficient capability to exchange information about different projects, in real-time, across the globe.

How does Solargis Analyst help you better understand the variability inherent to solar resource?

Resource variability is a key challenge in the solar and renewable energy sector, and ensuring you have a proper measurement campaign in place is essential to understanding it. We measure solar radiation at a potential site for a minimum of one year to have a full understanding of its potential. Solargis Analyst allows us to validate our ground data with satellite-model data to see if our measurement campaign was representative of the long-term conditions, and whether we need to make alterations depending on whether satellite-model and measured data shows a deviations on our site.

Based on the analysis, we gain a clearer picture on the projected financial performance of the site, which in turn informs our investment decisions. The visualisation tools add further flexibility, and they save time, as we can easily compare several data sets. There are lots of graphical tools to display the differences in various ways, for example, heat maps, scatter plots, time series plots and so on.

How do you see your use of Solargis Analyst evolving over the next five years?

We’re currently still implementing Solargis Analyst across our wider, global team, and we’ve found the software easily scalable, requiring minimal training and adaptation. Additionally, Solargis’ User Guide and explainer videos provide clear instructions, with ongoing support from the Solargis team enabling efficient implementation. We now plan on completing the initial implementation and subsequently rolling out the software to the rest of our solar development teams across our business.

Read more about this success story here.