Block Scale Rooftop Solar Potential for Orlando

Block-scale rooftop solar technical potential estimates for the city of Orlando, Florida, derived from LiDAR and national parcel data. It includes developable roof area and technical potential in kilowatts, along with the most common building use and occupancy type per block.

Use Cases

• Estimate total rooftop solar capacity in kilowatts per city block for urban energy planning.
• Analyze the relationship between the most common building use type and rooftop solar potential per block.
• Map developable roof area to identify high-potential zones for solar installation campaigns.
• Compare solar technical potential across blocks with different most common building occupancy types.

Strengths

• Derived from authoritative sources: LiDAR data from the Orlando Utilities Commission and a national parcel dataset.
• Provides two distinct data layers: developable roof area and technical potential in kilowatts.
• Includes additional block-level attributes: most common building use type and occupancy type.

Limitations

• Data is aggregated to the block scale, losing parcel-level detail from the original sources.
• The analysis is a proof-of-concept for Orlando, limiting generalizability to other cities.
• The underlying LiDAR and parcel data are from 2020-2021, which may not reflect recent construction.

Provenance

Source

Department of Energy, National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).

Collection Method

Processed and aggregated from Orlando Utilities Commission LiDAR data and a national parcel dataset.

Time Range

Source data circa 2020-2021.

Freshness

Dataset metadata was last updated in March 2026, though the source data is from 2020-2021.

Geography

City of Orlando, Florida, USA.