Rooftop PV: Potential and Impacts in a Complex Territory

Diana Bernasconi and Giorgio Guariso
Additional contact information
Diana Bernasconi: Prysmian Group, 20126 Milan, Italy
Giorgio Guariso: Dipartimento di Elettronica, Informazione e Bionngegneria (DEIB), Politecnico di Milano, 20133 Milan, Italy

Energies, 2021, vol. 14, issue 12, 1-17

Abstract: When developing a sustainability plan in a complex and heavily urbanized territory, one of the most relevant options available is installing rooftop photovoltaic (PV) panels. Thus, it is essential to determine the amount of available surface and the potential impact of such installations on the energy and emission budget of the area. Instead of processing remotely sensed imagery, which is a long process and does not allow considering the buildings’ ownership, this study develops an approach based on a cluster analysis of the urban/morphological characteristics of the municipalities. Once a clear group diversification is obtained, the roof surface of the center of gravity of each cluster is extrapolated to all similar settlements. This, together with the information of local solar irradiation, allowed us to compute each cluster’s potential solar energy production and its capability to respond to the local energy demand, a key parameter to decide about the possibility of a local smart electricity network. Finally, the emissions avoided thanks to solar PV development are computed in terms of carbon dioxide and other relevant pollutants. This approach is applied to the residential rooftop of Lombardy, a Northern Italy region with a wide variety of urban morphologies and landscapes. The potential production of rooftop PV exceeds the estimated electricity consumption of residential buildings and would allow sparing almost 4 M ton of CO 2 equivalent or 5% of the overall regional emissions.

Keywords: urban structure; cluster analysis; regional energy budget; emission budget (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/12/3687/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/12/3687/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:14:y:2021:i:12:p:3687-:d:578760

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().