MESoR - Management and exploitation of solar resorce knowledge

Knowledge of solar energy resource has been generated over the past years within several European and national projects. Large steps forward have been made for the benefit of research, renewable energy industry and the environment. Nevertheless, these multiple efforts have led to a fragmentation and uncoordinated access: different sources of information and solar radiationproducts 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 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. This coordination action 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; 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, meterology, geography, medicine, ecology), and dissemination (stakeholders involvement, training, future R&D, communication). To that purpose, a consortium has been assembled that gathers several partners having co-ordinated large international projects in the domain and other partners bringing the necessary expertise to the achievement of the objectives. The consortium provides a unique interface/ point of contact for the renewable energy community for retrieving data necessary to establish solar renewables as fully competitive energy option