Global Power Plant Database Update: 35k Plants, NOx Emissions, Power Sector Profiles

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Dear all,

I wanted to share a final update of the global power plant database and inform you that we are (for now) stopping maintenance of the database as we are out of funding for this project.

We hope to continue updates and be able to scale the work if we can secure more resources. As you know the project is open source on GitHub, so if you want to contribute or maintain it (or know others who want to), please do so.

Updates:

  1. The latest data update now includes 35,000 power plants, with 3700 solar plants being the main additions from our commercial partners. We also added AI based annual generation for hydro, solar and wind power plant . As we expand these methods to fossil fuel plants, this will deliver more accurate measures of water withdrawal and consumption and pollutants to air .
  2. The country level power sector profiles on RW provide a nuanced picture of efficiency, electrification, exposure to climate hazards, electricity access and opportunities for investment in renewable electricity.
  3. The dataset remains by far the most accessed on RW . For example, researchers identified) that 1/2 of the largest NOx air pollution point sources can be matched to power plants in our database and have built a global power plant dispatch model based on the data

In the future we have several visions that we would like to pursue with you, but we are also happy for you to continue to scale the work through the open source nature of the project.
We hope that in the future this work can be used to:

  1. De-risk energy sector investments by MDBs and private investors by identifying current and future climate risks.
  2. Internalize water risk and impacts on power sector infrastructure planning by combining it with Aqueduct water risk data.
  3. Highlight what populations are most affected by power sector air pollution and enable better compliance monitoring.

Best,
Johannes Friedrich
World Resources Institute
WRI is a global research organization that turns big ideas into action at the nexus of environment, economic opportunity and human well-being.
Africa | Brazil | China | Europe | India | Indonesia | Mexico | United States

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Thank you for this open-source project. The link to their GitHub is below: