Prospecting API

Designed for: Engineer/Consultant, Developer & Government Agency

For pricing and purchase details:

Product Description

Primary Uses

Utility-scale prospecting
Utility-scale lead qualification
Marketing and sales tools
Customer and public educational tools

3TIER's wind and solar datasets provide in-depth resource data for any location worldwide. Our online maps and data products have become the “go-to ” sales tools for residential and commercial-scale renewable energy installers and manufactures, helping them educate customers on the value of their on-site renewable resources, inform hardware and installation decisions, and calculate returns-on-investment.

Now 3TIER's Prospecting API (Application Programming Interface) enables you to integrate 3TIER renewable energy resource data into your own customer experiences and user applications while retaining the credibility of scientifically derived, third party resource data. You can use the API to build revenue-generating applications and mash-ups including:

Web-based lead generation programs
Internal and customer-facing sales tools
Product selection tools
Project design tools
Financial modeling tools

The Prospecting API accesses 3TIER's global data using simple REST calls. It is an open, standards based, XML programming interface. To make integration simple and quick, 3TIER provides detailed developer documentation, programming examples, and sample code.

Technical Overview

Product Highlights

Wind: Global Dataset. Annual mean wind speed values at 20 m, 50 m, and 80 m heights, or any custom height between 20 m and 80 m. Includes confidence intervals for each value.
Solar: Global Dataset. Annual mean GHI, including confidence interval.

Technical Highlights

The Prospecting API is a REST API that provides direct access to 3TIER's datasets.
Wind Dataset
- Spatial resolution of approximately 5 km
- Mesoscale 10-year WRF (Weather Research and Forecasting) model run
- Validated by 4000 NCEP-ADP network stations worldwide
- Model constrained by high-quality inputs from the NCAR/NCEP reanalysis
Solar Dataset
- Spatial resolution of 2 arc minutes (approximately 3 km)
- Based on 10 to 13 years of satellite data
- Founded on in-house research and the published work of Dr. Richard Perez of SUNY Albany
- Validated and developed using numerous datasets from around the world

Documentation

Methodology

To produce the global wind dataset, 3TIER implemented an innovative physics-based modeling approach. Unlike traditional models that merely interpolate observed wind speeds between widely dispersed points, 3TIER's system integrates statistical methods with the power of Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) models, which simulate the interaction between the atmosphere and the earth's surface, to create a more robust and accurate wind climatology.

3TIER's technique captures the myriad processes responsible for wind—from jet level dynamics to surface level processes and everything in between. Using proven, state-of-the-art techniques continually enhanced by the global atmospheric science and research community, 3TIER is able to create realistic wind fields throughout the world.

Validation Results

The difference between annual mean wind speed data provided by the Prospecting API and actual on-site measurements from NCAR/NCEP reanalysis is less than 0.5 m/s at 50% of the observational stations and less than 1 m/s at 78% of the stations. The overall bias is +0.05 m/s relative to NCEP-ADP observations, and the RMSE (Root Mean Squared Error) is 0.93 m/s. Find our validation papers here.

If you are unfamiliar with the technical terminology on this page, please visit our Glossary for more information.