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Title: Rooftop Solar Web-GIS Tool
Organization:TERI
Source:The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI)
Year:2014

To promote rooftop solar photovoltaic (SPV) systems, especially in Indian solar cities, there is a need for a tool to showcase solar resource potential in a user-friendly format so that users can investigate their locations of interest and perform pre-processed analysis. Geographic Information System (GIS) is the obvious tool to achieve this because it provides visual reference – a map of the entire city showing the buildings those have solar PV installation potential. An important part of every web-based GIS tool is its mapping or, visualization technology, which makes it possible to show data in the form of maps.

Hence, The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) is currently developing first-of-kind cloud based open-source Web-GIS Tool for estimating Rooftop Solar Power potential for Indian Solar Cities. The main objective of this study is to develop a high performing and flexible Web-GIS tool to estimate the rooftop solar power potential for Chandigarh area. This initiative has been supported by Shakti Sustainable Energy Foundation (SSEF), and the strategic support is being provided by Chandigarh Renewal Energy Science and Technology Promotion Society (CREST), Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE), Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI), and Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

Rooftop solar WEB GIS tool

Figure. GIS Interface (Beta Release) of Rooftop Solar Web-GIS Tool for India


Outcome/Benefits: After successful demonstration of this proposed Rooftop Solar Web-GIS tool on a pilot-basis, the quantifiable and tangible benefits can be showcased for other cities too. This tool can work as a base platform, which can be replicated for other cities by creating the GIS data layers for the target city and integrating those with the existing tool, without having any additional development efforts. Upon development of the GIS database(s), and successful demonstration of the tool for few major cities in the country, the possibility of inclusion of this database into world resources such as, Global RE-Atlas etc. can be explored.

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