A Customized Decision Support System for Renewable Energy Application by Housing Association

Abstract

One of the major problems in socio-environmental systems is the growing depletion of non-renewable resources and environmental degradation, resulting from inadequate environmental management and planning. Deepening environmental problems have forced countries to create management instruments that will help repair damage and support environmental protection efforts. The aim of this research is to develop a customized decision support system for the management of renewable energy based on the existing Geographic Information Systems (GIS). The proposed tool enables assessing the potential of solar energy production at the local scale, analyzing each rooftop. Due to the scale of the analyzed area and the details of the assessment, the tool is customized to the needs of housing associations. The system combines an existing GIS tool for calculating the solar radiation potential of rooftops (SOLIS) together with Tableau software that was used to aggregate and analyze data. In order to present the applicability of the developed tool, visualizations were prepared based on housing buildings managed by the “Biskupin” Housing Association in Wrocław (Poland) which is responsible for the management of 3415 residential premises. The created system based on spatial and environmental data will help to decide how to manage the available resources and the environment at the local scale while reducing the pressure on the environment. The tool allows for the aggregation, filtering and presentation of spatial data for the entire area of a housing association, as well as for a single building.