Solar Resource Assessment with the IRENA Global Atlas for Renewable Energy

Dr. Kristin Deason, Ph.D, is a progamme officer in the Knowledge Division of the International Renewable Energy Agency. She has over 15 years of experience in renewable energy, international cooperation, and project management. Before joining IRENA, Dr. Deason served as an associate with Booz Allen Hamilton where she managed renewable energy projects for the U.S. Army and Navy, and developed energy analyses and communications materials for the U.S. Department of Defense and the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy (ARPA-E). Dr. Deason has also worked extensively with the German Federal Government, the European Union, and the U.S. Department of Energy on renewable energy R&D programs and policy. She holds a Ph.D in Systems Engineering and a B.S. in Computer Science.

Dr. Nicolas Fichaux graduated with a PhD in offshore wind energy in 2003. He then worked with the French Agency for Energy and Environment as an research and development (R&D) officer. He joined the European Wind Industry association in 2007 as Secretary General of the European Wind Energy Technology Platform and Head of Policy Analysis. Since 2011, he has worked as a Programme Officer for Knowledge at the International Renewable Energy Agency, in particular on the Global Atlas for Renewable Energy, and REsource – IRENA’s renewable energy knowledge platform.

Gwendalyn Bender is the Product Manager for Energy Services at Vaisala, a global leader in weather measurements and services for weather impacted business. . In a similar role at 3TIER (acquired by Vaisala) she has served the global solar community since 2009 and played an integral role in the development of solar assessment techniques and datasets, which have largely been adopted as industry standard best practices for wind and solar development. Ms. Bender currently sits on the board of the Product Management Consortium.

Lionel Ménard holds a Master degree (Ms. Eng.) in Information Systems Management from the University of Nice Sophia Antipolis. He has an in-depth knowledge of System Development Life- Cycle (SDLC), management of Information System and Spatial Data Infrastructure. He has been the team leader of the Energy contribution from phase 2 to 6 of the GEOSS Architecture Implementation Pilots (2006 – 2013). He participates to the Global Atlas initiative since its early stage and he is charge of the Spatial Data Catalog. He has been a strong advocator for the use of open source software and the respect and implementation of standards (OGC). Since 1996, he has been involved in numerous European Commission funded projects playing key role in advocating, designing, prototyping, developing and monitoring cutting-edge spatial information systems (ConnectinGEO (2015-2017) EnerGEO 2009/2013 – ENDORSE 2011-2013 – MESoR 2007/2009 – SoDa 2000/2003).