ESA title

SnowPower

  • ACTIVITYDemonstration Project
  • STATUSOngoing
  • THEMATIC AREAEnergy

Objectives of the service

Water resources in snow, defined by the SWE, are of key importance to supply renewable energy production  through hydropower. Information of the spatial distribution and temporal evolution in SWE are essential to  forecast and manage reservoir water levels and electricity production. Timely information on snow properties,  such as watershed peak SWE and melt timing, offers an extended planning horizon to optimize efficiency. Based  on recent advances in snow remote sensing techniques, remote sensing has the potential to provide essential  information on the spatio-temporal distribution of snow, offering frequent high-resolution observations over  large areas. This project aims to push forward these recent technological, scientific developments into a leading  operational service, offering accurate, near-real-time snow information to the hydropower sector. The  knowledge of daily, area-wide snow properties at the watershed, mountain range, or potentially even continental  to global scale, is expected to improve the way that businesses are currently conducted. Accurate NRT monitoring  of snow conditions offers an excellent planning horizon for timely management decisions but can also support  energy trading and a range of other applications. The resulting service offers accurate, daily, spatially distributed  snow depth (SD) and SWE information at sub-km resolution, over any region of interest.

Image credit: EOMAP Project: Snowpower

Users and their needs

The targeted primary users are hydropower operators and planners. Secondary users are energy traders, solar  energy companies, insurances and weather services, as well as water managers and scientists. Hydropower  operators can use the snow information to optimize their production, as timely and robust information on snow  conditions offers an extended planning horizon to optimize production efficiency. Hydropower operators as well  as planning or consulting agencies can use snow information to design new projects or to optimize current  infrastructure. For energy traders, the trading risks can be reduced by information on past and current snow  conditions. For solar energy companies, the design of new alpine solar power plants benefits from estimates of  the climatological snow heights in the area. While insurances can employ a client payment system to cover  possible damage from lack (or abundance) of snow. Furthermore, meteorologicalservices, flood forecasting, and  drinking water storage can be improved. The main advantage lays in mountain regions worldwide. 

User needs:  

  • Knowledge on the water stored in snow in the catchment 

  • Large-scale snow data at a high resolution, for regions with sparse data so far, or previously  unobserved regions  

  • Robust and timely information 

  • Near-real-time information 

  • Low cost 

Main Challenge:  

  •  Robust worldwide information

Service/ system concept

The service consists of the near real-time (NRT) provision of satellite-based information on snow depth (SD) and  snow water equivalent (SWE) to the users, as well as providing historical SD and SWE data. The focus lays on  mountainous regions, with typically strong variability of snow conditions in space and time, often including deep  snow. For such regions, our service is expected to provide the largest benefits. The resulting service offers  accurate, daily, spatially distributed SD and SWE information at sub-km (e.g., 500 m) resolution, over any region  of interest to support large scale operations. The main field of application is seen in the hydropower sector, for  daily operation to optimize the production as well as planning of new plants. But also, other industries are  supported such as energy trading, insurances, water management for flood control and drinking water, weather  services, and solar energy companies.

Image credit: EOMAP, Project: SnowPower

The system architecture builds on the SWE processor developed by Snowcap, which will be implemented on FMI  Sodankylä satellite data centre servers that are monitored 24/7 by FMI operators. The processing system utilizes  Sentinel-1 SAR, NOAA IMS, Meteorological forcing data and SWE estimates based on DMSP F18 SSMIS by FMI  (available outside the mountainous regions). 

Image credit: EOMAP, Project: SnowPower

 

Space Added Value

Information of SWE is to-date still mostly inferred from intensive in situ measurement campaigns. These  measurements present several challenges, including high personnel costs, and the limited amount of information  contained in the measurements, restricted to the specific time and location of the samples. This is especially  relevant in mountain areas, with poor accessibility, lack in existing monitoring infrastructure, and high spatial  heterogeneity due to complex topography. The SnowPower solution for estimating SD and SWE in mountains  utilizes the satellite-based information provided by the ESA Sentinel-1 SAR mission. The SWE outside the  mountains is estimated using passive microwave radiometer (PMW) data from DMSP F17/F18 satellites. The  developed methodology can combine the Sentinel-1 based data with the PMW based information using a modelling framework and therefore it is possible to provide SD and SWE estimates to practically any region of  interest. Furthermore, IMS snow cover is used within the Sentinel-1 SWE retrieval as an additional auxiliary  dataset. By using also meteorological forcing data, daily SWE estimates are produced from the SAR and PMW based SD/SWE estimates. In contrast to many AI-based approaches, the method can also be applied to new  regions, like the Andes in South America, where in-situ data is extremely sparse. 

Current Status

Within the first month of the demonstration project, the NRT delivery of snow data for the Alps was  implemented and is running operationally since the winter 2024. The set-up for Scandinavia was successful as  well. Historical snow data is available for both Alps and Scandinavia. A global coverage with historical snow  data is in preparation along with a fast conversion of the whole process to new regions worldwide. The Andes  as a new region is currently in set-up phase. 

The generated snow data can be accessed via the eoapp Hypos, a user-friendly web application. Within the  eoapp Hypos as well data analysis is possible, like the creation of elevation bands, data comparison between  different seasons, years, and as well with customer tailored in-situ data. 

A regular exchange with the two pilot users within the demonstration project helps improving the snow data  and the eoapp Hypos portal and is still ongoing. 

Image credit : EOMAP & Snowcap, Project: SnowPower

Prime Contractor(s)

Status Date

Updated: 03 April 2025