In the field of solar energy applications, the use of geostationary satellite images becomes crucial, since they allow the retrieval of irradiance at the surface, with the best possible spatial and temporal coverage. This study, conducted on data from 18 European and Mediterranean sites, over 8 years of data shows that it is now possible to retrieve hourly global and beam irradiance data with a low uncertainty, typically 17% for the global, and 34% for the beam component, with a negligible bias.