Overview

---

PVGIS

Welcome to the documentation of the Photovoltaic Geographic Information System (PVGIS).

Photovoltaic Geographic Information System (PVGIS) is an open web application of the European Commission. It is developed and maintained in the Joint Research Centre (JRC) for over two decades by the Energy Efficiency and Renewables Unit (Ispra) of the Energy, Transport and Climate directorate.

The content is designed to help you navigate through the features, capabilities, and detailed references for the PVGIS command line interface (CLI), its web application programming interface (web API), and its core API¹². It applies only to version 6 and later. For documentation of version 5.3 and earlier, see the Joint Research Centre resources here.

Features & Capabilities

PVGIS offers cost-free public service insights on solar radiation and photovoltaic performance, providing location-specific estimates of power output for systems using various PV technologies.

• Photovoltaic Potential

  ---

  • Photovoltaic Performance Analysis
  • Grid-connected & Stand-alone
  • Fingerprinted reproducible calculations
  • QR-Code shareable results

• Time Series

  ---

  • Solar Radiation
  • Temperature
  • Wind Speed
  • Typical Meteorological Year (Planned)

• Coverage & Maps

  ---

  • Spatial coverage: From 75°N - 60°S and 180°W - 180°E.
  • Country/regional maps of solar resource & PV potential

• Public Service

  ---

  • Supported by the 🇪🇺 European Commission
  • Free to use
  • Open access
  • [> 50K Web API requests / week]

• Open by design

  ---

  

  • Python API based on NumPy
  • Web API based on FastAPI
  • CLI based on Typer
  • Open Source License EUPL-1.2

• Languages³

  ---

  

  • English
  • French (Not available yet)
  • German (Not available yet)
  • Italian (Not available yet)
  • Spanish (Not available yet)

Components

• Web API →

  ---

  New to PVGIS web API?

  Start with our entry level Web API guide to get up and running quickly.

• CLI →

  ---

  Interested to work interactively?

  Check out the collection of command line tools

• Python API →

  ---

  For advanced users and programmers

  Need to work programmatically with the PVGIS API? Peek over relevant API examples and the source code documentation.

Interested in contributing?

Head over to the development section and checkout:

• Contribution Guidelines & Conventions
• Adding New Features
• Testing

Support & Community

If you have questions or need support, please check the available resources first, then feel free to open a discussion or create an issue in our repository.

Contact points

• Support mailbox

  ---

  Questions and comments can be sent to our mailbox:

  JRC-PVGIS@ec.europa.eu

• Postal Address

  ---

  European Commission, Joint Research Centre Energy Efficiency and Renewables Unit via E. Fermi 2749, TP 450 I-21027 Ispra (VA) Italy

---

1. The web API is not the same as the core API. The former consumes the latter to produce a FastAPI-based web API interface. ↩

2. Visit https://photovoltaic-geographic-information-system.ec.europa.eu/api/ to explore PVGIS' web API interactive resources. ↩

3. The language options listed above refer to the PVGIS web application UI at https://photovoltaic-geographic-information-system.ec.europa.eu/. ↩