ORCID

Abstract

Decarbonizing the building sector is key to meet the EU climate goals by 2050. Although the recent policies recognized the importance of on-site solar energy production in the energy transition, there are only a few modelling studies analyzing how much the gap between the technically possible and policy-driven power generation of rooftop photovoltaic (PV) panels can be reduced. This study, therefore, uses geospatial techniques and the high-resolution Building Integrated Solar Energy (BISE) supply model to estimate the main spatial and temporal characteristics of the rooftop PV energy production potential. To support decision-making, important implications of the Solar Rooftop Initiative action plan of the European Commission on the future dimension of the PV electricity supply are also assessed in the context of the achievable potential. The modelling results indicate that the current rooftop PV technical potential could be about 2.7 PWh, being in similar extent with the EU power consumption. The largest country-level PV potentials can be found in Germany, France, Italy and Poland, with an increase of 30% by 2060. Our findings also underline that by following the latest policies, major improvement could be achieved in the EU's rooftop solar energy production by around 2040, depending greatly on the structure and energy efficiency niveau of the future building stock.

DOI

10.1016/j.apenergy.2024.122708

Publication Date

2024-04-15

Publication Title

Applied Energy

Volume

360

ISSN

0306-2619

Keywords

Building Integrated Solar Energy (BISE) model, Building roof area, Energy transition, Rooftop PV potential, Solar energy modelling

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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