12 November 2014: The first ground-based measuring station commissioned as part of the World Bank’s Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP) initiative to map renewable energy resources in 12 countries has been inaugurated in Pakistan. The station, inaugurated on 18 October 2014, will take high-precision solar measurements and is the first of nine to be constructed as part of the initiative in Pakistan.

On 15 October 2014, the ESMAP Renewable Energy Resource Mapping programme presented the Government of Pakistan with initial maps and data collected using satellites and computer modeling, which can be used to estimate solar, wind and biomass potential throughout the country. However, according to the World Bank, commercial developers will need comparisons with actual ground-based measurements. The nine ground-based solar stations, soon to be joined by 15 wind measurement stations, will take measurements for up to two years; the data collected will be used to decrease the error margin of the initial maps to as low as 5%.

With solar and wind project developers expressing strong demand for the data, the World Bank says it hopes to design an “open data solution that will allow the data to be accessed on a cost-free basis in near real-time.” The ESMAP Renewable Energy Resource Mapping program is a five-year, US$22.5 million project that plans to map wind, solar, small hydro and/or biomass resources, depending on the country, in Pakistan, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Maldives, Nepal, Papua New Guinea, Tanzania, Vietnam and Zambia. [World Bank Press Release] [ESMAP Renewable Energy Resource Mapping Project] [ESMAP Renewable Energy Resource Mapping Fact Sheet]