IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/enepol/v61y2013icp944-952.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Measuring the solar potential of a city and its implications for energy policy

Author

Listed:
  • Byrd, Hugh
  • Ho, Anna
  • Sharp, Basil
  • Kumar-Nair, Nirmal

Abstract

This research investigates the maximum potential energy that can be made available by efficiently installing photovoltaic (PV) systems on buildings throughout a city, from the central business district (CBD) out to low density suburbs. The purpose of this is to evaluate the contribution that electricity from PVs can make to reduce the electricity load of a city, supply the needs of a mixture of building types, reduce peak electricity demand and contribute towards the charging of electric vehicles (EVs). Having established the maximum potential, intermediate stages in PV penetration can be backcasted. The results indicate that low dense suburbia is not only the most efficient collector of solar energy but that enough excess electricity can be generated to power daily transport needs of suburbia and also contribute to peak daytime electrical loads in the city centre. This challenges conventional thinking that suburbia is energy inefficient. While a compact city may be more efficient for the internal combustion engine vehicles, a dispersed city is more efficient when distributed generation of electricity by PVs is the main energy source and EVs are the means of transport.

Suggested Citation

  • Byrd, Hugh & Ho, Anna & Sharp, Basil & Kumar-Nair, Nirmal, 2013. "Measuring the solar potential of a city and its implications for energy policy," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 944-952.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:61:y:2013:i:c:p:944-952
    DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2013.06.042
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421513005272
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.enpol.2013.06.042?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sumita Ghosh & Robert Vale & Brenda Vale, 2006. "Domestic energy sustainability of different urban residential patterns: a New Zealand approach," International Journal of Sustainable Development, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 9(1), pages 16-37.
    2. Duke, Mike & Andrews, Deborah & Anderson, Timothy, 2009. "The feasibility of long range battery electric cars in New Zealand," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(9), pages 3455-3462, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Adil, Ali M. & Ko, Yekang, 2016. "Socio-technical evolution of Decentralized Energy Systems: A critical review and implications for urban planning and policy," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 1025-1037.
    2. Shepero, Mahmoud & Munkhammar, Joakim, 2018. "Spatial Markov chain model for electric vehicle charging in cities using geographical information system (GIS) data," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 231(C), pages 1089-1099.
    3. Vecchi, Francesca & Berardi, Umberto, 2024. "Solar analysis for an urban context from GIS to block-scale evaluations," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    4. Ehsan Ahmadian & Chris Bingham & Amira Elnokaly & Behzad Sodagar & Ivan Verhaert, 2022. "Impact of Climate Change and Technological Innovation on the Energy Performance and Built form of Future Cities," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(22), pages 1-22, November.
    5. Gholami, Mina Bahrami & Poletti, Stephen & Staffell, Iain, 2021. "Wind, rain, fire and sun: Towards zero carbon electricity for New Zealand," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).
    6. Good, Clara & Shepero, Mahmoud & Munkhammar, Joakim & Boström, Tobias, 2019. "Scenario-based modelling of the potential for solar energy charging of electric vehicles in two Scandinavian cities," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 168(C), pages 111-125.
    7. Shepero, Mahmoud & Munkhammar, Joakim & Widén, Joakim & Bishop, Justin D.K. & Boström, Tobias, 2018. "Modeling of photovoltaic power generation and electric vehicles charging on city-scale: A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 61-71.
    8. Verma, Piyush & Patel, Nitish & Nair, Nirmal-Kumar C. & Brent, Alan C., 2018. "Improving the energy efficiency of the New Zealand economy: A policy comparison with other renewable-rich countries," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 506-517.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Uusitalo, V. & Soukka, R. & Horttanainen, M. & Niskanen, A. & Havukainen, J., 2013. "Economics and greenhouse gas balance of biogas use systems in the Finnish transportation sector," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 132-140.
    2. Liu, Xiaochen & Sweeney, John, 2012. "Modelling the impact of urban form on household energy demand and related CO2 emissions in the Greater Dublin Region," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 359-369.
    3. Sheng, Mingyue Selena & Sreenivasan, Ajith Viswanath & Sharp, Basil & Du, Bo, 2021. "Well-to-wheel analysis of greenhouse gas emissions and energy consumption for electric vehicles: A comparative study in Oceania," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    4. D.T. Rutledge & M. Cameron & S. Elliott & T. Fenton & B. Huser & G. McBride & G. McDonald & M. O’Connor & D. Phyn & J. Poot & R. Price & F. Scrimgeour & B. Small & A. Tait & H. Van Delden & M.E. Wedde, 2008. "Choosing Regional Futures: Challenges and choices in building integrated models to support long-term regional planning in New Zealand," Regional Science Policy & Practice, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 1(1), pages 85-108, November.
    5. Wang, Yaxian & Zhao, Zhenli & Baležentis, Tomas, 2023. "Benefit distribution in shared private charging pile projects based on modified Shapley value," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 263(PB).
    6. Byrne, John & Taminiau, Job & Kurdgelashvili, Lado & Kim, Kyung Nam, 2015. "A review of the solar city concept and methods to assess rooftop solar electric potential, with an illustrative application to the city of Seoul," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 830-844.
    7. Yang, Ying & Campana, Pietro Elia & Stridh, Bengt & Yan, Jinyue, 2020. "Potential analysis of roof-mounted solar photovoltaics in Sweden," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 279(C).
    8. David Jarvis & Nigel Berkeley & Tom Donnelly, 2012. "Capturing the economic benefits of a transformative shift to low carbon automobility," Local Economy, London South Bank University, vol. 27(7), pages 692-704, November.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:61:y:2013:i:c:p:944-952. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/enpol .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.