Lidar-Derived Rooftop Solar Potential for 128 U.S. Metropolitan Regions

NREL's Photovoltaic Rooftop Database provides geospatially-resolved estimates of suitable roof surfaces and their solar technical potential. The dataset covers 128 metropolitan regions in the United States, organized by city and year of lidar collection. It includes five geospatial layers per city-year, such as building footprints, developable planes, and technical potential estimates.

Use Cases

• Estimate total photovoltaic technical potential for developable planes within a specific metropolitan region to inform grid planning.
• Analyze the distribution of suitable developable planes across building footprints to identify high-potential areas for solar installation.
• Model solar energy generation potential by combining aspect values of developable planes with local solar irradiance data.
• Map the raster extent of lidar collections to assess data coverage and completeness for urban energy studies.

Strengths

• Covers a large geographic scope of 128 metropolitan regions across the United States.
• Provides five distinct, structured geospatial data layers (raster extent, buildings, planes, aspect, potential) for each city and year.
• Derived from authoritative lidar data collection, ensuring a high-resolution, geospatially-accurate foundation.

Limitations

• The dataset's temporal coverage is dependent on the year of lidar collection for each city, which may not be uniform or recent.
• Technical potential estimates are model-derived and may not account for all local regulatory, structural, or economic constraints.
• Data is organized by city and year, requiring aggregation for national-scale analyses, which may be complex.

Provenance

Source

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

Collection Method

Lidar-derived, geospatially-resolved data processing.

Time Range

Organized by year of lidar collection for each city.

Freshness

Last updated in May 2024.

Geography

128 metropolitan regions in the United States.