Abstract
Solar energy planning becomes crucial to develop adaptive policies ensuring both energy efficiency and climate change mitigation. Cities, particularly building’s rooftops, constitute a promising infrastructure for enabling the use of locale solar resources. This study proposes a combined engineering–statistical methodology to assess the photovoltaic potential of residential rooftops. Using validated algorithms for solar simulation and geographical information system (GIS) for spatial dissemination, the proposed methodology deals with the lack of data and allows an accurate investigation of the geographical and technical potential. Applied to the municipality of Laghouat, the results reveal that suitable rooftops areas for PV installations in the examined typologies were approximately between 18 and 35%. Moreover, the deployment of distributed PV systems on residential rooftops provides significant technical potential, which could cover up to 55% of the annual electricity needs. These original findings offer a realistic assessment of the usable solar potential within municipalities, which helps decision-makers establish energy efficiency strategies by reducing energy consumption and increasing the share of renewable electricity production. Additionally, the discussion offers valuable insight into energy management and investigates eventual energy sharing among residential buildings to achieve a net-zero energy balance at the municipal level.
Highlights
Nowadays, photovoltaic (PV) distributed systems are increasingly catching the attention of professionals and policymakers, after the significant drop in PV technology prices
According to the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) forecast, distributed PV applications accounted for almost half of the total PV growth worldwide in 2018 and it is expected to double by 2024, reaching thereby 530 gigawatts (GW) [1]
Due to the absence of digitalized spatial data, all individual houses are considered to have a uniform height of 2 floors
Summary
Photovoltaic (PV) distributed systems are increasingly catching the attention of professionals and policymakers, after the significant drop in PV technology prices. Commercial and industrial roofs are being privileged worldwide as an operative way to reduce the increasing electricity consumption. Their integration creates new challenges for electricity producers, energy system professionals and urban policymakers [2]. International experiences have shown that the integration of PV technologies in cities is mostly confronted by planning barriers and, the lack of awareness of stockholders regarding local renewable energy resources [3]. The successful deployment of PV distributed systems requires a higher engagement through assessment tools that help to enhance the knowledge of their planning and applications in urban areas [4]. The identification of solar potential in urban areas has a crucial role in promoting adaptive policies, financing programs and progressively moving cities toward a low-carbon energy transition [5]
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