ESTIMATION OF PHOTOVOLTAIC POTENTIAL AT THE URBAN LEVEL FROM 3D CITY MODEL (SOLAR CADASTER): CASE OF CASABLANCA CITY, MOROCCO

Abstract. Nowadays, the use of solar energy in buildings, especially photovoltaic energy, has undergone a great evolution in the world, thanks to various technological advances and to incentive programs. Related to this topic, the solar cadaster is an important interactive tool to predict the solar potential in an urban environment. The main objective of this research work is to estimate the photovoltaic energy potential of roofs based on aerial photogrammetry and GIS processing. The location chosen for the study is the Maarif district located in the city of Casablanca in order to raise awareness of the public and decision makers to this energy potential through a geoportal that will be developed for this purpose. The tool proposed in this research work makes it possible to evaluate the solar irradiation on a part of the territory of Casablanca with a sufficiently satisfactory precision and reliability, this thanks to the precise reconstruction of the territory in 3D urban model called digital surface model (DSM) at 50 cm resolution by techniques known as photogrammetry which makes it possible to carry out measurements extracted from a stereoscopic pairs, by using the parallax and the correlation between the digital images taken from various points of view. The analysis was used on the basis of specific algorithms and several factors including geographical location, shade, tilt, orientation, roof accessibility and topography which are the main factors influencing the productivity of solar panels.