Mapping opportunities for urban renewables generation

An opportunity map has been developed for Glasgow City Council (GCC) to support informed decisions about siting community scale renewable energy systems, as part of the Future City Energy Efficiency demonstrator project. The map was developed for the test case of freestanding PhotoVoltaic Power Stations (PVPS) in the city’s Vacant and Derelict Land (VDL), but it can equally be applied for other energy systems and in other geographies. The development process involved close collaboration between the planning experts in GCC and technical experts within Energy Systems Research Unit (ESRU) and elsewhere; this depth of expert input and review gives the tool credibility. It was implemented as an interactive Geospatial Opportunity Mapping tool (GOMap), running on a freely downloadable application (QGIS).

Development of an opportunity mapping tool to identify sites of suitability for renewable energy technology deployment.

Application of GOMap to the city of Glasgow indicated that the potential contribution of deploying PhotoVoltaic Power Stations (PVPS) on unconstrained Vacant and Derelict Land is equivalent to the annual heating energy requirement of 21.8% of dwellings in the hard-to-heat category. This finding is significant in relation to the Scottish Government’s energy strategy that calls for the electrification of building heating in a manner that alleviates fuel poverty. Alternatively, the generated energy is equivalent to 26.6% of the energy requirement of Glasgow’s car fleet if this was converted to electric vehicles.