Resolution in photovoltaic potential computation

In this paper, an analysis of the effect of the various types of resolution involved in photovoltaic potential computation is presented. To calculate solar energy incident on a surface, shadow from surrounding buildings has been considered. The incident energy on a surface has been calculated taking the orientation, tilt and position into consideration. Different sky visibility map has been created for direct and diffuse radiation and only the effect of resolution of the factors has been explored here. The following four resolutions are considered: 1. temporal resolution (1, 10, 60 minutes time interval for calculating visibility of sun), 2. object surface resolution (0.01, 0.1, 0.375, 0.75, 1.25, 2.5 and 5 m2 as maximum triangle size of a surface to be considered), 3. blocking obstacle resolution (number of triangles from LoD1, LoD2, or LoD3 CityGML building models), and 4. sky resolution (ranging from 150 to 600 sky-patches used to divide the sky-dome). Higher resolutions result in general in more precise estimation of the photovoltaic potential, but also the computation time is increasing, especially as realizes that this computation has to be done for every building with its object surface (both roofs and façades). This paper is the first in depth analysis ever of the effect of resolution and will help to configure the proper settings for effective photovoltaic potential computations.