Description

This repository provides a 30-year collection of meteorological cutouts for renewable energy assessment and power system modelling in the Iberian Peninsula and nearby offshore areas. The datasets combine ERA5 meteorological information with satellite-derived solar radiation data from SARAH-3 and have been specifically prepared for use with PyPSA-Spain and the atlite framework.

ERA5 provides the meteorological variables required for wind, temperature-dependent and hydrological modelling, while SARAH-3 supplies the direct and diffuse surface solar radiation fields used for photovoltaic generation modelling.

The cutouts are defined on a regular latitude–longitude grid with a spatial resolution of 0.3° × 0.3° (approximately 30 km) and hourly temporal resolution. SARAH-3-derived radiation variables are retained over land and offshore grid cells located within 50 km of the coastline.

All variables are integrated into a common atlite-compatible NetCDF structure, enabling the modelling of wind, solar and other weather-dependent energy-system processes.

Data Sources

ERA5

ERA5 is the global atmospheric reanalysis produced by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) within the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S).

ERA5 provides most of the meteorological variables contained in these cutouts. The variables derived from ERA5 are:

• height: Surface elevation
• wnd100m: Wind speed at 100 m above ground level
• wnd_azimuth: Wind direction information derived from the 100 m wind field
• roughness: Surface roughness length
• influx_toa: Top-of-atmosphere solar radiation
• albedo: Surface albedo
• temperature: Air temperature at 2 m above ground level
• soil temperature: Soil temperature at level 4
• runoff: Surface and subsurface runoff information used by the atlite hydrological workflow

Source:

https://cds.climate.copernicus.eu/

SARAH-3

Solar radiation data are obtained from the Surface Solar Radiation Data Set – Heliosat, Edition 3 (SARAH-3), developed by the EUMETSAT Satellite Application Facility on Climate Monitoring (CM SAF).

SARAH-3 provides satellite-derived surface solar radiation information over the study region. The following radiation variables are derived from SARAH-3:

• influx_direct: Direct surface solar radiation
• influx_diffuse: Diffuse surface solar radiation

The cutouts also include solar position variables calculated during data processing:

• solar_altitude: Solar altitude angle
• solar_azimuth: Solar azimuth angle

Within these cutouts, SARAH-3-derived radiation variables are provided over land and offshore grid cells located at most 50 km from the coastline. For marine grid cells located farther than 50 km from the coast, these variables are set to NaN.

Source:

https://doi.org/10.5676/EUM_SAF_CM/SARAH/V003

Terms of Use

These cutouts contain processed meteorological data derived from ERA5, provided by the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), and SARAH-3, provided by the EUMETSAT Satellite Application Facility on Climate Monitoring (CM SAF).

SARAH-3

Contains modified EUMETSAT CM SAF SARAH-3 data (2026).

Copyright © 2026 EUMETSAT.

All intellectual property rights to the original CM SAF products belong to EUMETSAT. These products are made available free of charge under the applicable EUMETSAT data policy.

Users must acknowledge EUMETSAT when using or redistributing the data and are requested to cite the original SARAH-3 dataset:

https://doi.org/10.5676/EUM_SAF_CM/SARAH/V003

Licensing and Attribution

The cutouts are distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence, subject to the attribution requirements associated with the original data sources.

Users of these cutouts should acknowledge the original ERA5 and SARAH-3 datasets and cite their corresponding sources in scientific publications and derived products.