The ENERGY VILLAGE’S calculator enables the potential for other renewable energy sources than biomass to be calculated. The ASPIRE model along with its biogas calculator was designed and implemented for the first in the ASPIRE project in Finland and it was used in previous energy village projects (e.g. ‘Energy Village’, and ‘Energy Village 500’) for energy potential and investments calculations. In LEAP-RE’s Portfolio Project ‘Energy Village’ a new version of the calculator was created. With this new version, now called ‘Aspire Energy Potential Calculator’, the potential for other renewable energy sources than biomass can be calculated.

In the previous biogas energy potential calculator there was a possibility to calculate investments for a biogas factory, but since the calculator was seen beneficial for larger user groups outside Finland, the investment part was removed because investment data is much area-specific. Now the calculator can be used also in international and African contexts. 

Currently the ‘Aspire energy potential calculator’ can be used to calculate the renewable energy potential of:

• Different biomasses for biogas production; 
• Solar power (based on Global Solar Atlas); 
• Wind power (based on Global Wind Atlas); 
• Geothermal energy; and 
• Hydropower.

After everything has been calculated, the results can be found on the summary page, which is very useful for comparing and choosing the type of renewable energy for the Energy Villages. This website calculator is expected to help minimise the intensive tasks of calculating the renewable energy potential for every potential energy village. Currently, the Energy Village Project has almost finalised collecting all the necessary data from 16 energy villages in Ethiopia, Botswana, Uganda and Kenya and calculations regarding the energy potential are being made at the moment.

The link for the ‘Aspire Energy Potential Calculator’ is https://calculator.aspiremodel.fi. We welcome you to test the calculator yourself!

More about the Energy Village Project:  https://www.leap-re.eu/energy-village/