Scholarly record

DETERMINING THE POTENTIAL FOR SOLAR ENERGY PRODUCTION ON ROOFTOPS

Greet Deruyter

Abstract

The European Directive 2009/28/EC - promoting the use of renewable energy - creates a common set of rules for the use of renewable energy in the EU. The goal is to limit greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by setting national binding targets for all EU countries with the overall aim of making renewable energy sources account for 20% of the total EU energy needs by 2020. Within this context, the Flemish government wants to stimulate its citizens and its companies to make the transition to the production and use of renewable energy. One of the easiest ways to do so is to promote the installation of solar boilers and panels on rooftops. In the past, this was done by a system of subsidization, but since this was too expensive, it was replaced by a system based on creating awareness of the benefits of solar energy. In 2017, the Flemish Energy Agency (VEA) published the Solar Map. Based on the annual solar irradiation, each roof part was given a score in the Solar Map. For roof parts with a good score, the benefits of installing solar panels or solar boilers were calculated. Since the launch of the map, the number of new solar panel and boiler installations on private buildings has significantly increased. The Solar Map includes all rooftops of at least 5m?, but does not take into account the stability of the roof or the presence of skylights, windows or other installations. Moreover, local regulations can be a limiting factor for the installation of solar panels. This is the case for the historic inner city of Bruges in East Flanders, where it is forbidden to install solar panels or any other installation on roof parts, which are visible from the public domain. Hence, a considerable amount of rooftops cannot be used for the production of solar energy, even though they score high in the Solar Map. Therefore, the purpose of this research was to determine which rooftops with a good score also satisfy the requirements of invisibility from the public domain. The first step was to determine which datasets are suitable based on completeness and level of detail. In the second step, an invisibility map containing all rooftop parts that are invisible from the public domain was created. The Large-scale Reference Database combined with height information from the DHMV II products proved to be a good starting point for visibility analyses. Furthermore, the results show that it is possible to create an invisibility map based on open data. However, some reservations have to be made concerning the update frequency and the resolution of the input data.

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DOI resolver: doi.org/10.5593/sgem2019/2.2/s11.097

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