TITLE:
Estimating Solar PV Potential for Sustainable Energy Planning in Tier-II Cities of India: Case of Bhopal City
AUTHORS:
Kakoli Saha, Nikhil R. Mandal
KEYWORDS:
Digital Surface Model, Object-Oriented Classification, Rooftop PV, Solar Potential, Electricity Demand
JOURNAL NAME:
Current Urban Studies,
Vol.4 No.3,
September
30,
2016
ABSTRACT: With growing economy, several cities and towns in India are experiencing a substantial
growth in their gross and peak electricity demands. While Municipal Corporations
and the electricity supply agencies are struggling to cope with growing energy
demand of cities, many think solar electricity generation through rooftop Photovoltaic
(PV) is a viable solution for this problem. Quantification of available rooftop is
necessary to estimate the potential of energy generation in Indian cities through
rooftop solar PV panels. This paper proposes an automated object-oriented approach
to extract total available area of residential rooftops. A smaller residential neighbourhood
in Bhopal city has been selected as Test Site to test the proposed method.
Data sets used are World View 2 Stereo pair and Multispectral images. It is found
that the test area has the potential to meet 265% of its daily local energy demand
through rooftop solar PV panels. Though Indian government had announced separate
scheme under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission (JNNSM) to promote
installation of rooftop PV, development of this sector is still in nascent stages.
This paper also suggests some policy level interventions to promote rooftop PV at
domestic level in similar tier-II cities of India.