Roof’s Potential and Suitability for PV Systems Based on LiDAR: A Case Study of Komárno, Slovakia

Abstract

The case study focuses on evaluating the suitability of roof surfaces in terms of their solar potential based on their geometric parameters. The selected processing methodology detects segments of roof surfaces from the LiDAR base, supplemented with spatial information (orthophoto map, real estate cadastre (REC)—footprint, basic database for the geographic information system (ZBGIS)—classification of buildings—current use). The approach based on spatial analyses takes into account the limit conditions for determining the impact of solar radiation resulting from the roof area, slope, aspect, and hillshade. Considering to the available subsidy scheme for family houses in the conditions of the Slovak Republic, a narrower sample of 35 family houses was selected from the total number of typologically represented buildings (194). A 3D model of the building created by combining REC and LiDAR substrates shows the roof surface without overlap, while another 3D model made of LiDAR substrates alone represents the actual dimension of the roof surface. The results presented for each selected building show good agreement with each other, and their visualizations were obtained using two GIS environment approaches. In the area of family houses, up to 94% of the roof areas of buildings registered in the REC meet the conditions for the installation of a PV system with an output of 2.6/3.3 kW.