Evaluating the impact of urban morphology on rooftop solar radiation: A new city-scale approach based on Geneva GIS data

Building rooftops represent one of the most valuable resources to harvest solar energy in cities. Nevertheless, this potential is limited by urban morphology impacting shading conditions. This study suggests a general methodology assess impact form on harvesting. To aim, new GIS-based approach developed extract meaningful morphological parameters at very large scale. The rooftop overall rate here defined as benchmark, and it measured through scaled insolation representing ratio between surface within context its unshaded theoretical maximum. A set 40 features calculated for 60,000 buildings Canton Geneva (Switzerland), about 350,000 roof pieces derived from Solar Cadaster Geneva. results outline distribution city function morphology. shows moderate Pearson coefficients (r = 0.2/0.4) towards some parameters, namely building height, volume, height difference with surroundings, while others seem irrelevant. Analysing 48 municipalities time, denser downtown areas reach higher correlation levels 0.4/0.6) compared suburban ones.