A GIS Open Source Software application for mapping solar energy resources in urban areas

Abstract

This paper presents the development of an open source geographical information system (GIS) software module for mapping solar energy resources for urban areas. The main goal of this work is to demonstrate the potential use of the r.sun module, a component of GRASS software, in calculating real solar radiation for urban areas. Modelling of the spatial distribution of solar radiation is one of the program functions. The r.sun module is dedicated for that purpose; however, it can only generate the spatial distribution of potential solar radiation. To get the real solar radiation maps it is advisable to use meteorological data, that describe diminution of solar radiation caused by cloud cover. In order to facilitate the generation of maps a GRASS source code modification was made. As a result, the r.sun module used in this work generates the real spatial distribution of solar radiation. The results are shown to be comparable with solar radiation satellite data obtained from the HelioClim project.