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Green data at your fingertips with Irena's mobile app

Irena launches free mobile app with details of global renewable energy sector from isolated islands to remote deserts.

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Abu Dhabi — An innovative environmental app to know what is happening in the renewable energy sector across the world was launched on Tuesday by the International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena) in the national capital.

The free app, available for iPhone, Android, Windows Phone and BlackBerry systems, is a mobile version of the Global Atlas for Renewable Energy, a web-based global mapping data, released by Irena last year.

The app was launched by Irena’s IT team in a Web-based meeting, taking potential users through the technicalities of the app.

Considered the only global tool of its kind, the Global Atlas pocket combines 1,000 maps from 67 governments and 50 data centres to provide information on renewable energy resources anywhere in the world.

“The Global Atlas pocket helps bring more investment certainty to renewable energy prospectors and investors. Users can freely access data from geothermal potentials in the Caribbean to solar potentials in the Middle East to anywhere. It is an incredibly powerful tool,” said Adnan Amin, director general of Irena.

With global renewable energy capacity has increased by 120 per cent since 2000 and with investments in renewable toppling the ones in conventional fossil fuels and nuclear combined in the past couple of years, the new app gives a clear picture of what is going on in the renewable energy sector not just in major cities, but everywhere from isolated islands to remote deserts.

Irena announced last week that 164 countries have now adopted at least one type of renewable energy target, the UAE included, up from just 43 countries in 2005, yet another reason for investors to keep an eye on renewable energy potentials.

According to Irena, the new app is ideal for keeping up to date with such data.

The Global Atlas pocket is meant for experts in the field, using technical terminology and data collected by Irena from various reliable, government and non-government sources around the world.

“Through its Energy Sector Management Assistance Programme, the World Bank is making data-rich renewable energy resource maps of 12 developing countries available through Irena’s Global Atlas. As renewable resources take on a central role in countries’ energy planning, this information becomes increasingly important to governments, citizens and the private sector,” said Anita Marangoly George, senior director of the World Bank’s Energy and Extractives Global Practice.

 silvia@khaleejtimes.com

• UAE