Estimating the Potential for Rooftop Generation of Solar Energy in an Urban Context Using High-Resolution Open Access Geospatial Data: A Case Study of the City of Tromsø, Norway

An increasing trend towards the installation of photovoltaic solar energy generation capacity is driven by several factors including the desire for greater energy independence and, especially, the desire to decarbonize industrial economies. While large ‘solar farms’ can be installed in relatively open areas, urban environments also offer scope for significant energy generation, although the heterogeneous nature of the surface of the urban fabric complicates the task of forming an area-wide view of this potential. In this study, we investigate the potential offered by publicly available airborne LiDAR data, augmented using data from OpenStreetMap, to estimate rooftop PV generation capacities from individual buildings and regionalized across an entire small city. We focus on the city of Tromsø, Norway, which is located far north of the Arctic Circle in a region not usually assumed to be suitable for solar energy generation and demonstrate that the city is potentially capable of generating a significant fraction of its electricity demand in this way. Regional averages within the city show significant variations in potential energy generation.