Mesoscale Assessment of Buildings for Rooftop PV Installations

- A Bullet Point Summary of the article Ahierarchicalmethodologyforthemesoscale

assessmentofbuildingintegratedroofsolarenergysystemsbyJ.H.JoandT.P.Otanicar
PROBLEMSTATEMENT

Due to fast urbanization, buildings and other structures are being

responsible for a significant portion of the Green House Gas
emissions and the climate change associated with it. Buildings
consume 72% percent of electricity generated in the US every
year. [8]
Therefore, the adoption of clean energy generation techniques
particularly for the context of urban infrastructures should be
widely studied. Roof tops account for about 25% of urban land
cover. So, they could serve as a great ground for generating
energy.
However, the rooftops are not always suitable for PV deployment
as they may have some obstructions that can cast shadows on
the available space thereby limiting the useful space for solar
energy generation like overhead tanks, HVAC vents, chimneys,
skylights, and/or plumbing vents. No studies before have
presented a technique to find out the useful space from satellite
data.
RESEARCH OBJECTIVE

The research was aimed at developing and validating a new

method for assessing the capacity of a building for the rooftop PV
to be deployed using Remote Sensing and Geographical
Information Systems (GIS) and estimating the potential energy
production using energy modeling and simulation tools.

METHODOLOGY

To accurately calculate the useful rooftop area for PV installation,

Quickbird remote sensing data images were processed by
Definiens Developer software to identify obstructions on the
roof- tops and the results exported into ArcGIS (geographical
information system) for use in conjunction with the shadow
analysis of rooftop obstructions
Google SketchUp , a three dimensional computer modeling
program that is able to accurately cast shadows on a model
based on the longitude and latitude of the site was used for
shadow analysis.
Based on the available rooftop area, the RETScreen PV Sizing
Software was used to assess the energy production, life-cycle

costs, and emission reductions.

Climate data from the Phoenix ground monitoring stations and
NASAs global satellite/analysis data, including temperature,
humidity, wind, and solar radiation was utilized in the simulation.
Also, for this study poly-crystalline silicon PV panels with 12.9%
efficiency were selected so as it will represent the average
efficiency of PV systems available in the market.
AREA STUDIED:

Although the focus of the study was to identify useful area

available for PV installations on rooftop and the amount of
electricity produced, it also quantified the indirect benefits of the
installation which includes reduction in carbon dioxide emissions
and reduced water use based on the simulation result and
energy data associated with reduced electricity generation from
fossil fuel sources.
The site selected for this case study was a four-square-mile area
(10.36 km2) located in Chandler, Arizona part of the Phoenix
Metropolitan Area (PMA). Electricity is provided by a single utility
company and the electricity consumption data were collected for
the three year period from 2006 to 2008. The total electricity
consumption figures were 183 GWh, 198 GWh, and 182 GWh for
2006, 2007, and 2008, respectively.

RESULT

Based on the spacings required between PV arrays on the

rooftop, peak solar output was determined to be 7.8 W/ft2 (83.96
W/m2). Using this solar output, a referenced 8.4 kWp system was
developed that could be installed on a 1076 ft2 (100 m2) rooftop.

The simulations showed that deploying PV systems in the area

studied would result in reductions of 12,200 tons of carbon
dioxide (CO2), 0.142 tons of methane(CH4), and 0.175 tons of
nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions annually.

CONCLUSION

The annual electricity production of the 8.4 kWp PV system on a

1076 ft2 (100 m2) rooftop area used as a reference was 15.5
MWh. This reference system was then used to calculate the

energy that could be generated by installing PV systems on the

rooftops of the 932 governmental and commercial buildings in
the area studied.
The results of this calculation revealed a potential PV system
capacity of 10,080 kWp and a subsequent total annual electricity
generation of 18,600 MWh. This renewable energy generation
source could replace 10% of the total electricity consumption of
all the buildings, including residential, commercial, and
governmental buildings in the case study area normally
generated from conventional fossil fuel energy sources, based on
their average annual average electricity demand from 2006 to
2008 of 182,230 MWh.