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Main Authors: Robinson, Caleb, Ortiz, Anthony, Kim, Allen, Dodhia, Rahul, Zolli, Andrew, Nagaraju, Shivaprakash K, Oakleaf, James, Kiesecker, Joe, Ferres, Juan M. Lavista
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.14860
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author Robinson, Caleb
Ortiz, Anthony
Kim, Allen
Dodhia, Rahul
Zolli, Andrew
Nagaraju, Shivaprakash K
Oakleaf, James
Kiesecker, Joe
Ferres, Juan M. Lavista
author_facet Robinson, Caleb
Ortiz, Anthony
Kim, Allen
Dodhia, Rahul
Zolli, Andrew
Nagaraju, Shivaprakash K
Oakleaf, James
Kiesecker, Joe
Ferres, Juan M. Lavista
contents We present a comprehensive global temporal dataset of commercial solar photovoltaic (PV) farms and onshore wind turbines, derived from high-resolution satellite imagery analyzed quarterly from the fourth quarter of 2017 to the second quarter of 2024. We create this dataset by training deep learning-based segmentation models to identify these renewable energy installations from satellite imagery, then deploy them on over 13 trillion pixels covering the world. For each detected feature, we estimate the construction date and the preceding land use type. This dataset offers crucial insights into progress toward sustainable development goals and serves as a valuable resource for policymakers, researchers, and stakeholders aiming to assess and promote effective strategies for renewable energy deployment. Our final spatial dataset includes 375,197 individual wind turbines and 86,410 solar PV installations. We aggregate our predictions to the country level -- estimating total power capacity based on construction date, solar PV area, and number of windmills -- and find an $r^2$ value of $0.96$ and $0.93$ for solar PV and onshore wind respectively compared to IRENA's most recent 2023 country-level capacity estimates.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2503_14860
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Global Renewables Watch: A Temporal Dataset of Solar and Wind Energy Derived from Satellite Imagery
Robinson, Caleb
Ortiz, Anthony
Kim, Allen
Dodhia, Rahul
Zolli, Andrew
Nagaraju, Shivaprakash K
Oakleaf, James
Kiesecker, Joe
Ferres, Juan M. Lavista
Machine Learning
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
We present a comprehensive global temporal dataset of commercial solar photovoltaic (PV) farms and onshore wind turbines, derived from high-resolution satellite imagery analyzed quarterly from the fourth quarter of 2017 to the second quarter of 2024. We create this dataset by training deep learning-based segmentation models to identify these renewable energy installations from satellite imagery, then deploy them on over 13 trillion pixels covering the world. For each detected feature, we estimate the construction date and the preceding land use type. This dataset offers crucial insights into progress toward sustainable development goals and serves as a valuable resource for policymakers, researchers, and stakeholders aiming to assess and promote effective strategies for renewable energy deployment. Our final spatial dataset includes 375,197 individual wind turbines and 86,410 solar PV installations. We aggregate our predictions to the country level -- estimating total power capacity based on construction date, solar PV area, and number of windmills -- and find an $r^2$ value of $0.96$ and $0.93$ for solar PV and onshore wind respectively compared to IRENA's most recent 2023 country-level capacity estimates.
title Global Renewables Watch: A Temporal Dataset of Solar and Wind Energy Derived from Satellite Imagery
topic Machine Learning
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.14860