This technical brief evaluates Sunairio’s High-Resolution Earth Data (SHED) and Sunairio ONE climate forecast ensemble for energy sector applications, including grid planning and resource adequacy modeling. Accurate analysis requires weather datasets with high spatial and temporal resolution, long duration, physical consistency, and the ability to capture evolving climate trends—requirements not fully met by existing public datasets.
The study compares Sunairio datasets with observations and public sources such as ERA5, WTK, and NSRDB across more than 50 U.S. locations. Results show SHED generally performs comparably or better across key metrics, particularly for correlation and daily variability of wind speeds and solar irradiance. Sunairio ONE demonstrates strong physical realism in modeling future climate conditions but shows some limitations in capturing multi-day variability and extreme events. Overall, Sunairio provides a unified, high-resolution approach that can enhance energy planning, though further validation is recommended.