Mapdwell in Washington, DC

07/01/2014. [Washington] USA
metalocus, INÉS LALUETA

The Mapdwell Project is about enabling communities with information that will drive sustainable practices, community awareness, energy efficiency, and smart development through the aggregate effort of individuals. By transforming accurate, open, and unbiased information into education and action, the project proposes an organic –yet highly auspicious– approach to the fossil fuel dilemma. The MIT-born project has formed an alliance with the District Department of the Environment (DDOE) to provide its state-of-the-art rooftop solar resource to the U.S. capital.

Washington, D.C. National Mall. Image © Mapdwell.

Washington, D.C. National Mall. Image © Mapdwell.

Washington, D.C. National Mall. Imagen © Mapdwell.

Washington, D.C. National Mall. Image © Mapdwell.

The Mapdwell Solar System is an interactive online rooftop solar mapping tool that allows users to precisely estimate rooftop solar electric potential (PV panels) for almost every building in a given city by a simple click or by inputting an address.

“The tool uses high-resolution (one meter by one meter grid) LiDAR data (Light Detection and Ranging) to create a three-dimensional model of the sample terrain that accounts for the shape of building rooftops and structures, existing infrastructure, and tree foliage. The model is later used as the base for evaluating the amount of solar irradiation that falls on each unit of surface –for every single hour of a typical year– and determining its individual potential for solar electric generation using photovoltaic (PV) panels. Validation testing has shown that our technology yields results with a ±3-5% margin of error.

Calculated irradiation data is generated using technology developed –and licensed exclusively to Mapdwell LLC– by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) at the Building Technology Sustainable Design Lab.

For the D.C. sample, Solar System maps the solar potential of over 160,000 buildings, identifying high yielding solar resources for over 2.5 Giga Watts of potential solar photovoltaic installations and over $10 billion in local business. It also pinpoints more than 800 existing installations equivalent to ~4 Mega Watts of installed capacity.”