platform
Project title
The aim of the project is to develop tools to help energy planners identify non-renewable energy plants with promising potential for repurposing as solar, wind, storage or grid-support facilities.
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Decision makers
- Energy program managers
- Policy makers
- Business leaders
Objectives
To identify data sources and develop tools useful for energy planners during the identification of plants to convert to sustainable energy.
Deliverables
What will be built for this project?
- [ ] Dashboard
- [ ] Dataset and data sources
- [ ] Publications
Data attributes
Context
Data that could be taken into account for the decision:
- Plant age, status, capacity, generation and emissions
- Site area, slope, contamination and water use
- Solar/wind resource
- Grid connection and system requirements
- Workforce and community dependence
Actions
Possible decisions to make:
- Retire plant and install solar/wind/biofuel/...
- Choose transition date and investment level
- Reuse equipment as grid support
Outcomes
The tool should show separate dimensions rather than one suitability score:
- Transition urgency: age, retirement status, utilization and emissions.
- Renewable potential: solar, wind and available land.
- Grid/system value: existing connection, replacement capacity and storage needs.
- Economic feasibility: indicative CAPEX, LCOE, remediation and infrastructure reuse.
- Social/environmental feasibility: employment, local tax dependence, pollution burden, land rights and community preferences.
- Data confidence: freshness, missing fields and coordinate accuracy.
The target metrics could be:
- Annual renewable MWh expected production vs current non-renewable MWh
- Avoided CO2 and pollution
Data
The project will use GEM, Climate TRACE, renewable-resource atlases, national plant/grid data, and the En-ROADS simulator
Code
(none)
Needs
List of needs:
- Data sources
- Contact with decision makers
Contributors needed
- power-systems engineer
- renewable-energy analyst
- data engineers
- project-finance specialist
- environmental expert
- UX developer
- stakeholder-engagement lead.
References
- https://github.com/Project-Resilience/mvp/blob/main/data/global_energy_monitor.py
- https://globalenergymonitor.org/projects/global-oil-gas-plant-tracker
- capacity, status, start/retirement dates, ownership, technology and coordinates. The current release is January 2026 and generally uses CC BY 4.0.
- Mainly covers coal units of 30 MW or more; some coordinates are approximate. Download requires a form.
- https://climatetrace.org/data
- source-level emissions, ownership and confidence information.
- API is beta; use cached bulk downloads for reliability. Records must be carefully matched to GEM plants.
- Solar potential: https://datacatalog.worldbank.org/search/dataset/0038641/world-photovoltaic-power-potential-pvout-gis-data-global-solar-atlas
- Preliminary resource assessment, not a bankable site study.
- Wind potential: https://globalwindatlas.info/
- Local measurements and engineering studies would still be required.
- https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/144181629878602689/pdf/Coal-Plant-Repurposing-for-Ageing-Coal-Fleets-in-Developing-Countries-Technical-Report.pdf
- Coal plant repurposing framework from the worldbank.
- IRENA renewable cost study: https://www.irena.org/Publications/2025/Jun/Renewable-Power-Generation-Costs-in-2024
Discussion
(no discussion yet)