Rooftop solar warms and cools cities

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2024-10-07 20:00

Australia; International; NSW

Image by Jan Van Bizar from Pixabay

City-wide installation of rooftop solar panels could raise daytime temperatures and lower nighttime temperatures. International researchers combined weather forecasting and building energy models to see how widespread rooftop installations could affect Kolkata's microclimates. They found temperatures and windspeeds would be higher during the day and lower at night, and humidity would be lower, particularly during the day. Looking at rooftop solar sensitivity of other global cities with different climate conditions—including Sydney, where the data showed a 0.8°C nighttime drop and 1.9°C daytime increase—they concluded that the temperature effects on microclimate can be generalised to other cities planning large-scale rooftop solar installations.

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Journal/
conference: Nature Cities

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: The University of New South Wales, University of Calcutta, India

Funder: Funding was provided by the Sponsored Research and Industrial Consultancy under grant IIT/SRIC/ AR/MWS/2021-2022/057, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration through the National Integrated Heat Health Information System under grants NA21OAR4310146 and NOAA/CPO #100007298 and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration for Interdisciplinary Research in Earth Science (IDS) under grants 80NSSC20K1262 and 80NSSC20K1268. Additional support was provided by the US National Science Foundation through grant OAC-1835739, the US Department of Energy under grant ASCR DE- SC0022211 and the Urban Integrated Field Lab Community Research on Climate and Urban Science under grant DE-SC0023226.

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