Development of a photo voltaic building rooftop integration analysis tool for GIS for Dokki District, Cairo, Egypt

Abstract: This study describes the development and implementation of a PV Roof Integration Analysis Tool integrated into a GIS system in order to be used in conducting research within alternative energy field. The tool introduces a set of analytical functions in a software application with the purpose of obtaining a suite of analysis functions, where they code is fully available and it can be accessed with the possibility of modifying or even adding more functions. The toolbox was developed on VBA because of the VBA allows modify the code with anyone with basic programming skills. In order to manage tables, map, etc. in ArcMap the ArcObjects COM-library was used. The different functions of the tool are: show address, find building rooftop suitability for using PV system, find installable modules area, find expected maximum electricity output, find reduction of CO2 emission and find how many people can utilize PV system output. This study focuses on the Dokki district in Greater Cairo that was used as a case for developing the idea of a tool to assess the possibility of the roofs of existing buildings to install PV modules in order to electrify building through developing a tool that works within the environment of ArcGIS software. This thesis report is organised in main seven chapters. Chapter 1 is the introduction part of the thesis. Chapter 2 gives a brief background of PV physics and installation considerations along with brief description of the Sun. Chapter 3 introduces technical fundamentals of GIS, ArcGIS, VBA, ArcObjects and Ecotect analysis tool. Chapter 4 describes the toolbox of the software detailing all the functions and codes used by the application. Chapter 5 contains the results of the software suite for all study area. Chapter 6 includes general discussion about the study's results and evaluation of the tool. Chapter 7 is a conclusion and proposed future work. Study area is well suitable for generating electricity using PV systems. The results show that about 90% of the district’s rooftops are suitable for using photovoltaic cells in case of standalone systems and about 93% in case of public grid connected systems. The most important conclusion of this thesis is that GIS can be an advantageous tool in alternative energy fields.