ESTIMATING THE ROOF TOP SOLAR POTENTIAL OF DTU CAMPUS

Abstract

Renewable energy is being seen as a transformative solution to meet energy as well as climate challenges, both globally and nationally. Solar photovoltaics (PV) technology is emerging as an extremely attractive option, particularly with abundantly available solar resource, modular technology and zero fuel costs for alternative source of energy. The accessibility of shadowfree rooftop region is one of the greatest difficulties in deployment of rooftop solar PV system. In this study three step methodology is adopted to find the total roof top solar PV potential and total solar insolation of DTU campus. In the first step, the calculation of the potential rooftop area available on DTU Campus was done by relying exclusively on freely available satellite imagery (Google Maps, Google Earth, and Wikimapia). The open source instruments are sufficient to estimate the rooftop potential of locations without the need for costly satellite imagery or time-consuming and complex image processing algorithms. In the second step the 3D model of the building is created and the shape and size of shadow area is found at different time to calculate total shade free region. The shadow is mainly due adjacent buildings or due to objects on roof. In the third step, we further revised the estimate using 3D simulation and shading analysis of building clusters to identify discounting factors that account for inter-building shading. The total solar insolation for the topography of the DTU campus is also determined in Arc Map.

The total shade free region from 2D mapping is 38099.3 square meter and from 3D simulation is 37112.8 square meter the maximum and minimum deviation in shade free region from both methods are 12.3% and -13.60% respectively. The total solar radiation on the rooftop is found to be 10201.33 MWh/year while the Photovoltaic potential is 3711.28kWp. The total solar radiation for the topography of DTU campus is found to be 58.5 GWh.