A suitability score out of one hundred for every cell, combining three factors with stated weights: global horizontal irradiation (55%), flatness (25%) and clearness index (20%), with irradiation and clearness rasters, a per-governorate table, and 12 best sites covering 19,087 km2.
The national mean irradiation is 6.26 kWh/m2/day.
In short
The national mean irradiation is 6.26 kWh/m2/day and 58.1% of the country falls in the excellent class.
The highest and lowest scoring governorates are listed in the table.
12 sites fall in the top one percent, covering 19,087 km2.
Who it is for
Renewable energy developers, consultancies, energy engineering and geography departments, and planning bodies.
Method: what we add to the raw data
- Irradiation and clearness come from an open global climate archive on a one-degree grid over the Kingdom, densified by inverse-distance weighting to about two-kilometre cells.
- The clearness index is incoming irradiation divided by clear-sky irradiation, an indirect indicator of dust and cloud, both of which cut panel output.
- Slope comes from an open global elevation model at 90 m, then summarised to the suitability cells.
- Score = 0.55 x normalised irradiation + 0.25 x flatness + 0.2 x clearness, each scaled linearly between stated bounds, multiplied by one hundred.
- Best sites are cells in the top one percent of scores, grouped into connected areas of at least fifty square kilometres.
Product details
| What you get | 2 spatial layers in GeoPackage, 3 GeoTIFF rasters, 2 CSV tables, lyrx and qml symbology for ArcGIS Pro and QGIS, a PNG map at 220 dpi, and an Arabic and English guide |
|---|---|
| Formats | GPKG, GeoTIFF, CSV, lyrx, qml, PNG |
| Coordinate system | WGS 84 (EPSG:4326) |
| Licence | Commercial use allowed for you and the organisation you buy for; no resale or redistribution |
| Delivery | A private download link valid for 24 hours, within 6 hours of payment confirmation |
| Package size | ZIP 3.0 MB |
| Personal data | The product contains no personal data |
Spatial layers
governorates_solar— polygons, 121: Governorates with suitability scorebest_sites— polygons, 12: Best sites (top one percent)
Raster files (GeoTIFF)
D124_suitability_score.tif— 1,055 × 803, about 2 km: Suitability scoreD124_ghi_kwh_m2_day.tif— 1,055 × 803, about 2 km: Global horizontal irradiationD124_clearness_index.tif— 1,055 × 803, about 2 km: Clearness index
Tables
D124_governorates_solar.csv— 121 rows: Suitability per governorateD124_best_sites.csv— 12 rows: Best sites table
Limitations
- The score is a first screening tool, not a siting decision: it excludes land ownership, distance to the grid and roads, protected areas and connection cost, which actually govern feasibility.
- The weights are a stated methodological choice; changing them changes the ranking, and they are given explicitly so users can recompute with their own.
- The climate source grid has cells of about one hundred kilometres, densified here by inverse-distance weighting for display; densifying smooths boundaries, it adds no new observation. It is weakest along the Sarawat escarpment, where a few kilometres separate highland at two thousand metres from Tihama at sea level, both inside one cell.
- Dust cuts output by more than the clearness index alone reflects, because accumulation on panels is a separate effect from blocking irradiation, and this product does not measure it.
- Irradiation is a long-term climatological mean, not a measurement of a particular year.
FAQ
- How long does delivery take?
- Up to 6 hours after payment is confirmed.
- How long does the download link last?
- 24 hours, and it is renewed free on request.
- Can I get a refund?
- Digital products are not refundable once downloaded — unless the file is defective or does not match the description, in which case it is replaced or fully refunded.
- What does the licence allow?
- Commercial use is allowed for you and the organisation you buy for; resale or redistribution is not.