Calculation of solar potential using aerial imagery and tridicon SOLAR

New software paves the way for the use of renewable energies on roof areas. tridicon SOLAR generates planning instrument automatically.

Part of the top issue “renewable energies” is the search for new locations where solar panels using photovoltaics technology or solar thermal power will be efficient. Municipalities, energy suppliers, investors and citizens need a planning instrument that visualizes the solar potential of roof areas taking into account exposition, slope and shadowing.

The 3D roof scape of a city can be used as a basis for the calculation of solar potential. tridiconTM 3D software - which was developed by GTA – generates high quality buildings with main roof types automatically. Suitable data sources for this are stereo aerial images or laserscan (LiDAR) data. On request additional details like dormers and chimneys can also be modelled. tridiconTM 3D exports 3D buildings into all common data formats (CityGML, 2D and 3D shape, KML, OBJ, VRML and others).

For the calculation of shadowing a digital surface model (DSM) is being used. A DSM can be generated from a point cloud which comes either from LiDAR data or an automatic photogrammetric processing of stereo aerial photography. Roof scape and DSM are the basis for the automatic generation of a three-dimensional map showing the solar potential of roof areas.

The solar potential map shows the available annual solar energy for every roof area. For the correct calculation of these values each roof area is divided into tiles of an adjustable size of for example 0,25 m². For each of those tiles an individual shadowing profile for a whole year and occuring concrete shadowing periods during the course of the year are established. Every day of the year from sunrise to sunset with a temporal resolution of 2 minutes is taken into account. The unit kWh/m² per year expresses the solar potential of a roof area.
The solar potential map can be published on the internet making the information accessible for interested parties. The user can perform a search in a digital map using address information like streetnames and house numbers. Different colours show solar potential classification for the roof of a building.

In addition, GTA offers photorealistic roof textures based on the original aerial photography as well as the capturing of all existing solar collectors.

On behalf of investors, energy suppliers or government and public administration, a high quality 3D city model in level of detail 2 (LOD 2) as well as a solar potential map can be generated fast, cost-efficient and covering large urban areas.

GTA plans the commercial launch of the software solution tridiconTM SOLAR for autumn 2011.

About GTA Geoinformatik GmbH
GTA, founded in 1991 as geoinformatics company with its main office in Neubrandenburg, Germany, is one of the leading developers and producers in 3D technology worldwide. Main product is the software solution tridiconTM 3D for the automatic generation of 3D city models which was developed over the last ten years.
GTA Geoinformatik GmbH has already produced more than 200 digital 3D city maps and more than 4.800 digital 3D landmarks for European, North American and Asian capitals and major cities.

GTA Geoinformatik GmbH
Managing director: Dr. Peter Lieckfeldt
Lindenstraße 63, D-17033 Neubrandenburg
Tel: +49 395 3581 142
Fax: +49 395 3684 424
Email: contact@tridicon.de
Internet: www.tridicon.de
Marketing contact: Kathrin Hutton
hutton@gta-geo.de, Tel +49 395 3581 238

This release was published on openPR.