Solar Atlas of New Zealand from satellite imagery

Abstract

The utilisation of solar resources has become of utmost importance for the transition of the global, carbon intensive economy. In New Zealand the uptake of solar energy has increased substantially, but the relative contribution to the overall energy mix is still small. Previous research efforts on the solar resource across the country are revisited with improved satellite-modelled data from Solargis to derive a solar atlas for the country. A comparison is made with NIWA data, which shows that the modelled data are at an adequate level of accuracy and improves our understanding of the solar resource at an appropriate spatial and temporal resolution. The solar atlas makes available a commercial satellite data source and informs further investigations into how solar can, and will, play a more meaningful role in our transition to a low carbon future.

Changes in shore platform wetting and drying cycles following the 2016 Kaikōura earthquake: Implications for incipient marine terrace evolution

“…A simple empirical model of wetting and drying cycles on the Kaikōura Peninsula shore platforms was developed using three inputs derived from larger‐scale models: tide height (Walters et al, 2001), significant offshore wave height (Gorman et al, 2003), and insolation (Brent et al, 2020), combined with rainfall data as measured at the Kaikōura automated weather station. The model runs at an hourly time step (Figure 2) and was constrained by five parameters: The total water level above tidal limits accounting for inverse barometric effects, wave setup, and wave runup. A threshold of irradiance required to initiate drying (assuming an atmospheric vapour pressure deficit). A mean evaporation rate. Suppression of surface drying due to bio‐protection from algal colonies. A minimum length of sustained drying that represents the beginning of a drying cycle. Section 2.5 describes in detail how these parameters were calculated for the specific environmental conditions for Kaikōura.…”

“…Irradiance input data used local cloud conditions and 10 years of measured sunlight data to create an hourly time series of diffuse irradiance specific to Kaikōura (Brent et al, 2020). A default threshold of 62 W m −2 (equivalent to 0.22 MJ m −1 h −1 as the latent heat of vaporization for liquid water) was set as the environmental threshold of irradiance required to start a drying cycle, since this is the energy required to evaporate 1 mm of open water (ET OW ).…”

“…A simple empirical model of wetting and drying cycles on the Kaik oura Peninsula shore platforms was developed using three inputs derived from larger-scale models: tide height (Walters et al, 2001), significant offshore wave height (Gorman et al, 2003), and insolation (Brent et al, 2020), combined with rainfall data as measured at the Kaik oura automated weather station. The model runs at an hourly time step (Figure 2) and was constrained by five parameters:…”

AgriPV Systems: Potential Opportunities for Aotearoa–New Zealand

“…The potential of solar energy in Aotearoa-New Zealand has been recognised in both academic [1,2,3] and grey literature [4,5,6]. In particular, an update to the NZGP1 scenarios of Transpower [7] projects solar to generate between 700MW to 2600MW by 2050.…”

“…Aotearoa-New Zealand, as an island nation, is land constraint with more than a third of its land area serving agricultural purposes -9.6 million hectares [8]. The agricultural farmland may have the solar resource required for electricity generation [1,9,10]. This, however, may be a point of contention, due to potential land use conflicts between PV farm developments and the country's agricultural sector [11,12].…”