Solar energy in the city: Data-driven review on urban photovoltaics

Electrification, achieved through the rapid and widespread deployment of renewable technologies is a pivotal strategy for mitigating climate change over the coming decades. The prevailing expectation hinges on the replacement of existing fossil fuel-based electricity generators with renewable technologies such as photovoltaics. Major challenges arising in the transition towards photovoltaic deployment are their spatio-temporal intermittency as well as their relatively low power density, resulting in a higher land use as compared to centralised fossil fuel-based generators. In response, the generation of energy should be strategically situated alongside areas of demand. These demand hubs primarily manifest in urban settings which produce a separate set of boundary conditions and constraints from typical ground-mount photovoltaic. This calls for a new domain of expertise in the planning and design for PV in urban areas. This research examines the emerging field of “urban photovoltaics” and focuses on the predominance of literature related to building-based photovoltaics. To deepen the comprehension of this dynamic landscape, an extensive body of literature was first organised into ten concise topics using natural language processing. Within each of the topics, focused reviews of select literature were conducted to provide a broad description of research in the urban photovoltaic field. Alongside this analysis, existing research gaps were identified and six research agendas were discerned through a manual distillation of the topics: the need for multi-scalar research, simulation frameworks for partial shading, inclusion of life-cycle assessment, focus on contextual solutions, and understanding of heat in photovoltaic systems and its impact on urban heat island.