This web mapping application and the underlying modeled solar radiation data were produced under a project awarded to the University of Northern Iowa (UNI) GeoInformatics Training, Research, Education, and Extension (GeoTREE) Center in 2021-2023. The project was sponsored by grant funding through the Iowa Economic Development Authority, Iowa Energy Center (Agreement Number: 21-IEC-012). A full description of the procedures used to model solar radiation and more information concerning this web -application can be found by clicking the Detailed Explanation button below.
The ISAM application is meant to serve only as an investigative screening tool with a likely intended audience of solar installers, local government planners, individual business and home owners, academics, and anyone else who might be interested. The ISAM application should not be used for solar installation design or in place of an onsite assessment.
The underlying solar radiation potential data are based on Geographic Information Systems (GIS)-based modeling using statewide Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) data collected across the state of Iowa from 2019-2021 (https://geodata.iowa.gov/pages/lidar).
To start using the web mapping app, click the Go to the map button and then enter an address to zoom to an area of interest. Use the Draw a polygon tool (below the layer control in upper right) to draw an area of interest in order to derive statistics on modeled solar radiation in that area. Building footprints or polygon boundaries were compiled from publicly available local government data sources during 2021 and 2022. You can turn the buildings layer on/off through Buildings in Layer control (upper right). When zoomed in to a city level, a user can simply click on a building and summary statistics on solar radiation will appear in the popup. In that popup, the summary graph displays total kilowatt hours (kWh) modeled per month for the building or area of interest drawn. Summary statistics are provided below the graph.
The Solar Radiation Data and Digital Surface Model Data links below allow you to download GDAL virtual raster (VRT) files locally. These VRT files provide the ability to access, visualize, and analyze the underlying terabytes of GIS data both for the DSM (intermediate elevation data used in solar radiation modeling) and solar radiation modeling results. These files are very small and once downloaded can be added to GIS software and used as a gateway for the actual data stored on UNI GeoTREE servers. See the Detailed Explanation document for more detail.
The underlying GeoTIFF is also available. They can be used in QGIS as rasters via the Data Source Manager with Source Type set to Protocol. It is not necessary to download them, and they are quite large. VRT files are more convenient for ArcGIS Users.
Several relevant information links are provided below. For any technical questions regarding the data or web application, contact John DeGroote (john.degroote@uni.edu), UNI GeoTREE Center Director.