NREL’s Renewable Energy Atlas

Björkna serving dish. Now just $2.99.

So, you’re surfing the Intertubes and read that the IKEA store in Tempe, Arizona, is having a sale on that Björkna serving dish you’ve been wanting.

And, wait, what’s this? The store had added a 600-kWh solar array to its roof. Cool.

IKEA store, Tempe, Arizona, with solar panels on the roof.

That begs the question: how many watt-hours per square meter can be produced on an average day on the rooftop? (Granted, the question only begs lutefisk-loving, Web-browing, bargain-hunting, IKEA-shopping residents in Tempe, Arizona, with an interest in renewable energy — but they deserve to be a stand-in for an average consumer as much as the next person.)

How do you find the answer to that this burning question? Easy, you use the Renewable Energy Atlas, a new mapping tool created by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado.

Just surf over to the Renewable Energy Atlas (RE Atlas) and select Solar Photovoltaic from the list of resources on the “Layers” tab on the left.

Solar power potential.

Then, click on “Find Location” in the tool bar at the top of the page, type in IKEA’s address, and click “OK.”

Ta-da! That giant roof in the sun can soak up 6,490.6 Wh/m2/day.

Potential PV solar power at IKEA store, Tempe.

Granted, the new geospatial tool is probably more practical for an energy consultant trying to figure out how much power a proposed roof could produce at the IKEA story. However, I’m a generalized map/info geek and the first example is more along the lines of how I roll (i.e., down any of the countless wonderful rabbit-holes lurking on-line).

Dan Getman, leader of the NREL team that designed the new mapping tool, described item at Friday’s unveiling: “Ease of use and breadth of data make RE Atlas an excellent tool for policymakers, planners, energy developers, and others who need to better understand the renewable resources available in the United States.” He added, “RE Atlas is an important addition to NREL’s suite of geospatial tools, because it brings together so many renewable energy datasets in one easy-to-use tool.”

You can, for example, isolate your renewable energy source, and see what section of the country has the most potential for tapping into it. Here’s the U.S. map for solar PV.

Solar PV, U.S.

Wind:

Wind power

Biomass:

Biomass

(One word of advice: always reset the energy resource to just the one you want when starting a search. The atlas has more power under the hood than a Bugatti Veyron, and it’s best to start out slowly until you get a feel for it. Here’s all the data at once.)

Data Overload

There are lots of good mapping tools out there, but for depth and breathe of renewable energy potential, and for ease of use, the RE Atlas is the new standard.

Columbus, Ohio (photo by Codydean via Flickr)

Well, hello, Columbus. (Click here if you’re not a Philip Roth fan.)

Some people were surprised when Columbus, Ohio, appeared on the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) list of the top twenty-two energy “Smarter Cities,” sharing the spotlight with towns better known for their deep green glow. Places like Portland, Seattle, Boston and San Francisco.

One person who was not surprised was Michael Coleman, mayor of the city that in the 1990s still had the reputation as being just another bleak hole in the Midwestern Rust Belt. Coleman has led efforts to make Columbus a model of energy efficiency, one of the main priorities under a program called “Get Green Columbus.”

The program was already well underway when it received a huge boost from $7.4 million in federal stimulus funds. More than a score of city fire stations and several other city buildings are getting energy efficiency make overs. Businesses and homes are given incentives to lower energy consumption.

Well before the infusion of cash from Washington, Columbus had already completed its first energy efficient affordable housing, called, fittingly, Greenview Estates. The city also developed a recycling program, an initiative clean up air pollution and an infrastructure overhaul to ensure that residents had clean, safe water.

Energy efficiency has been at the core of the Columbus revitalization, however, which is why the NRDC included it as one of the 22 “Smarter Cities” for 2010.

The other cities, grouped by size are -

Large:

Austin, TX

Boston, MA

Chicago, IL

Columbus, Ohio

Dallas, TX

El Paso, TX

Long Beach, CA

New York, NY

Oakland, CA

Portland, OR

San Francisco, CA

Seattle, WA

Medium:

Berkeley, CA

Fort Collins, CO

Huntington Beach, CA

Reno, CA

Springfield, IL

Santa Clarita, CA

Small:

Beaverton, OR

Denton, TX

Dubuque, IA

Santa Cruz, CA

To lean more about how the NRDC picked these cities from among 655 considered, visit the Smarter Cities site.

On Tuesday, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac ended their radio silence nine weeks after sending cryptic letters warning lenders against permitting the use of Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) — but it wasn’t the follow-up PACE advocates were hoping for.

That’s how Grist writer Jonathan Hiskes began his article about the document posted below: a “clarification” of the quasi-governmental home mortgage programs’ position on how to deal with PACE-financed solar homes.

Fannie and Freddie’s official position is, in a word, “Don’t.”

New rules: A little upside, a lot of downside

Rooftop solar panels

There’s slightly more to it, but nothing that changes the thrust of their earlier warnings. The only upside in the new letter is the part that grandfathers in existing mortgages for homes with PACE-financed solar panels. Several advocates of PACE financing have been working to keep the successful program alive within Fannie and Freddie, including the Vote Solar Initiative. Hiskes reviews some of those efforts in his Tuesday article.

For now, however, the outlook for the very successful program does not look good. With financing being the major hurdle to homeowner adoption of clean renewable energy such as solar, a blow to PACE is a blow to a clean energy future.

FHFA & PACE -