Fig. 5: Solar energy analysis for the eight cities and annual solar energy yield.
From: Carbon reduction technology pathways for existing buildings in eight cities
To analyze solar energy potential, we designed a custom visual programming script in the Rhinoceros3D CAD and Grasshopper visual programming/scripting environment. Specifically, our script extrudes rooftop areas as horizontal surfaces with surface normal pointing in the direction of the z-axis. Based on the areas, the weather file, potential shading, and efficiencies of the solar panels for each city, we run the modeling and simulation to derive the annual energy yield for each region (in kWh). The bar graphs show the total solar energy generated over a year for all rooftops in the seed neighborhoods.
