Estimating Solar PV Potential for Sustainable Energy Planning in Tier-II Cities of India: Case of Bhopal City

Abstract

With growing economy, several cities and towns in India are experiencing a substantial growth in their gross and peak electricity demands. While Municipal Corporations and the electricity supply agencies are struggling to cope with growing energy demand of cities, many think solar electricity generation through rooftop Photovoltaic (PV) is a viable solution for this problem. Quantification of available rooftop is necessary to estimate the potential of energy generation in Indian cities through rooftop solar PV panels. This paper proposes an automated object-oriented approach to extract total available area of residential rooftops. A smaller residential neighbourhood in Bhopal city has been selected as Test Site to test the proposed method. Data sets used are World View 2 Stereo pair and Multispectral images. It is found that the test area has the potential to meet 265% of its daily local energy demand through rooftop solar PV panels. Though Indian government had announced separate scheme under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission (JNNSM) to promote installation of rooftop PV, development of this sector is still in nascent stages. This paper also suggests some policy level interventions to promote rooftop PV at domestic level in similar tier-II cities of India.