Estimating Solar Power Potential using Customised GIS Tools
Custom GIS tooling that ranks sites by solar potential using terrain, shading and land-use constraints, so siting decisions stop being guesswork.
The challenge
The client had candidate areas for solar deployment and no defensible way to choose between them. Terrain, shading from surrounding relief, slope and aspect, and land-use restrictions all changed the answer, but assessing each site by hand was slow and the reasoning was impossible to reproduce for anyone reviewing the decision.
Our solution
We modelled incoming solar radiation across the study area from elevation data, accounting for slope, aspect and terrain shadowing through the year, then layered exclusion masks for unsuitable land use and constrained areas. The scoring was packaged into a customised GIS toolbox, so the client can change assumptions and re-run the ranking themselves, and every ranked site comes with the reasoning behind its score.
Results & impact
- Candidate sites ranked on modelled radiation, not assumption
- Terrain shading, slope and aspect factored into every score
- Unsuitable and restricted land excluded before ranking
- A reusable toolbox the client re-runs with their own parameters
Technology
Skills applied
Related work
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