Thesis

Utilising GIS mapping to identify areas of opportunity for photovoltaic power station deployment in an urban environment

Creator
Rights statement
Awarding institution
  • University of Strathclyde
Date of award
  • 2020
Thesis identifier
  • T16516
Person Identifier (Local)
  • 201482563
Qualification Level
Qualification Name
Department, School or Faculty
Abstract
  • At the present time there is much interest in deploying clean energy systems at the city level in the form of district heating, solar photovoltaics, ground/air source heat pumps and the like. Such deployments require consideration to be given to policy aspects that may affect the likelihood of receiving planning permission, and technical aspects that may constrain the economically achievable power production. The research reported here identified the factors underlying these policy and technical aspects and established scoring and weighting mechanisms derived from consultations with local authority planners and utility personnel. The high-resolution, city-wide information to result is represented as layers in a GIS tool for Geospatial Opportunity Mapping, named GOMap, which is applied to the city of Glasgow to investigate the potential for the deployment of PVPS throughout the city. It is found that utilising a portion of the city’s VDL is equivalent to the heating energy requirement of the city. This thesis describes the policy and technical aspects, the scoring applied to the factors underlying each aspect, the weighting method applied to the aspects, the functionality encapsulated within the GOMap tool, and the results from application of the tool at real city-scale. Several scenarios are investigated with the focus on policy and technical changes intended to encourage the availability of greater land areas within the City of Glasgow and enable a comparison of alternative land use strategies – such as between VDL and other sites such as quarries. Scenario 1 is the base case in which all policy and technical aspects are active in the context of sites with the VDL designation. Scenario 2 is as Scenario 1 but with the future intention of community education programs and the disregarding of glare from PVPS by relaxing pertinent policy aspects. Scenario 3 is as Scenario 1 but with technical substation-related aspects disabled to reflect a future intention for radical infrastructure investment. Scenario 4 is as Scenario 1 but investigates new potential sites within the city in areas not previously designated VDL and meet certain conditions. Scenario 5 is a scenario that explores the deployment of PVPS on the roofs of multi-story car parks for the purpose of charging EVs. Scenario 6 explores the alternative use of VDL sites for house building to tackle the city’s homeless issue. A land utilisation factor is set that allows for only a portion of an unconstrained land area to be utilised. This is required to reserve adequate space to deploy and maintain the PVPS installation. To calculate the PVPS energy generation, the area of unconstrained land is passed to an in-built PVPS model where the potential energy yield is calculated as a function of solar geometry and hourly weather information. GOMap can be specifically configured for other cities as the tool allows the scoring and weighting of the policy and technical aspects to be modified to reflect local policies and specific renewable energy technologies. The tool was rerun using irradiance data characteristic of these cities to indicate the potential supply for local heating/cooling and EV energy demand for PVPS deployment on sites designated for urban renewal development. GOMap is made available under an open source licence and is free to download and apply. It has already been deployed in teaching and research context and has informed sustainable development planning within Glasgow City Council.
Advisor / supervisor
  • Clarke, J. A. (Joe A.)
Resource Type
DOI

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