Evaluating Rooftop Solar Energy Inequity with UAVs

UAVs provide critical geospatial intelligence for a wide variety of industries and applications. One of the areas with continued UAV use is the renewable energy industry, specifically commercial energy. The expansion of consumer-level solar energy installations has the potential to reduce household energy use, offset carbon footprints, ensure a reliable energy source, and, perhaps most importantly, offset electricity costs. However, not all households can take advantage of this technology due to various limitations, leading to energy inequities across urban areas. While many studies have explored how these inequities have materialized from a purely socioeconomic standpoint, we explore how these inequities develop due to the structural limitations of the household. In this chapter, we explore the impact of structural limitations across neighborhoods of varying socioeconomic status on rooftop solar energy output by leveraging high-resolution UAV data. We demonstrate how structural differences across neighborhoods limit the economic viability of rooftop solar when explicitly considering the cost of electricity, solar energy output, and solar system costs.