A Method for the Automated Construction of 3D Models of Cities and Neighborhoods from Official Cadaster Data for Solar Analysis

Carlos Beltran-Velamazan,Marta Monzón-Chavarrías,Belinda López-Mesa

doi:10.3390/su13116028

Carlos Beltran-Velamazan, Marta Monzón-Chavarrías + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/su13116028

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Journal: Sustainability	Publication Date: May 27, 2021
Citations: 7	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Universidad de Zaragoza

Abstract

3D city models are a useful tool to analyze the solar potential of neighborhoods and cities. These models are built from buildings footprints and elevation measurements. Footprints are widely available, but elevation datasets remain expensive and time-consuming to acquire. Our hypothesis is that the GIS cadastral data can be used to build a 3D model automatically, so that generating complete cities 3D models can be done in a short time with already available data. We propose a method for the automatic construction of 3D models of cities and neighborhoods from 2D cadastral data and study their usefulness for solar analysis by comparing the results with those from a hand-built model. The results show that the accuracy in evaluating solar access on pedestrian areas and solar potential on rooftops with the automatic method is close to that from the hand-built model with slight differences of 3.4% and 2.2%, respectively. On the other hand, time saving with the automatic models is significant. A neighborhood of 400,000 m2 can be built up in 30 min, 50 times faster than by hand, and an entire city of 967 km2 can be built in 8.5 h.

Highlights

Nowadays, cities occupy 3% of land but represent between 60% and 80% of energy consumption and 75% of carbon emissions [1]
Solar access in urban areas offers a great potential for renewable energy integration in buildings
Understanding the rooftop photovoltaic (PV) potential is critical for regional renewable energy policies [5]

Summary

Introduction

Cities occupy 3% of land but represent between 60% and 80% of energy consumption and 75% of carbon emissions [1]. BIPV installations can reduce operational carbon emissions of buildings by up to 50% even in high-density cities [2], and STC have been found to be necessary to transform existing multi-family buildings into nearly zero energy buildings (nZEB) in Spain [3]. These systems are usually installed on the buildings’ roofs, since the solar potential for roofs is much less affected than that for facades by the compactness [4]. Understanding the rooftop photovoltaic (PV) potential is critical for regional renewable energy policies [5]

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