CERFRES: High-Resolution European Renewable Energy Generation Dataset

Engineering notes

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Chinese explanation / 中文解读

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Original abstract

CERFRES (CERRA-derived Farm-level Renewable Energy Systems generation for Europe) is a high-resolution, open-access dataset of weather-driven wind and solar photovoltaic (PV) power generation across Europe. The dataset provides hourly generation time series for the period 1995–2025 at multiple spatial scales, including individual installations (farm-level), reanalysis grid cells (5.5 × 5.5 km), bidding zones, and national aggregates. The dataset is constructed by combining geospatial generator metadata with high-resolution meteorological input from the Copernicus European Regional ReAnalysis (CERRA). Wind and PV generation are simulated using physically based power-conversion models. Individual installations are mapped to the underlying meteorological grid based on geographic coordinates. The code used to produce this dataset is available at https://github.com/EmilBruvik/CERFRES. Two scenarios are provided: As-built scenario: Reconstructed historical fleet based on commissioning-year metadata, representing the gradual deployment of renewable capacity over time. Fixed reference scenario: Applies the full 2025 installed fleet across the entire historical period to enable consistent long-term variability analysis. Structure The dataset is distributed as a ZIP archive containing the following subdirectories: country-aggregated-production/ per-farm-production/ correction_factors/ Country-aggregated production The country-aggregated-production directory contains hourly time series of wind and PV generation aggregated at country and bidding-zone level. Each file is stored in NetCDF format and follows a consistent structure: Dimensions time (8760): hourly timestamps for a full year area (47): countries and bidding zones Coordinates time: hourly timestamps (UTC) area: area names (e.g., “Germany (DE)”, “DK1”, “NO2”) Variables pv_power_mw (time, area)Hourly PV generation for the as-built scenario pv_power_mw_2025 (time, area)Hourly PV generation for the fixed 2025 fleet scenario wind_power_mw (time, area)Hourly wind generation for the as-built scenario wind_power_mw_2025 (time, area)Hourly wind generation for the fixed 2025 fleet scenario Per-farm (grid-level) production The per-farm-production directory contains spatially explicit generation data on the underlying CERRA grid. Each file is stored as an xarray.Dataset with the following structure: Dimensions time (8760): hourly timestamps y, x (1069 × 1069): spatial grid indices Coordinates latitude (y, x) longitude (y, x) Variables wind_power_mw_onshore (time, y, x)Onshore wind generation per grid cell wind_power_mw_offshore (time, y, x)Offshore wind generation per grid cell pv_power_mw (time, y, x)Utility-scale PV generation pv_power_mw_distributed (time, y, x)Distributed PV generation (rooftop and small-scale systems) Correction factors The correction_factors directory contains CSV files with monthly multiplicative bias-correction factors for each area and technology. Structure Area: country or bidding zone PV_Factor: multiplicative factor for PV generation Wind_Factor: multiplicative factor for wind generation These factors are derived by comparing modeled generation with ENTSO-E reported data over the period 2015–2025. Validation The validation directory contains the third-party data extracts used to produce the validation results reported in the paper (CERFRES vs. ENTSO-E, NVE, and Energinet observations). These are static snapshots of continuously updated source platforms. Structure ENTSO-E/: ENTSO-E Transparency Platform generation-by-type exports (2014-2025) NVE/: hourly wind production per Norwegian onshore farm (2002-2025) EnergiDataService_DK/: hourly solar and wind generation per Danish region (2021-2025) GEM/: 3 CSVs, February 2026 release - Global Wind Power Tracker (1 - 10 MW and 10 MW+ wind farms) and Global Solar Power Tracker (distributed installations only).

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