Climate change is one of the challenges our society has to deal with nowadays. Photovoltaic is one of the main renewable energies and it is gaining ground all around the world. The prediction of solar radiation is crucial for this kind of energy. The aim of this work is to produce a solar potential map of rooftops the city of Cáceres (Spain) providing an overview of the employed methodology. The estimation of global radiation is based on LiDAR data of high density. Historical radiation records have been also employed to define the calculation parameters. The representation of the estimated global radiation on each building provides a wide range of new possibilities in the use of renewable energies and changes the conception of rooftops to a potential source of photovoltaic energy.

Solar energy constitutes one of the most effective alternative energy sources for combating climate change. However, the solar potential in a city can vary depending on the urban morphology. The purpose of this paper is to perform a directional statistical analysis of the distribution of the monthly solar potential of rooftops in the city of Cáceres, Spain, in relation to the orientations and slopes of the rooftops. Two residential areas, one in the city center and one on the outskirts of the city, and an industrial zone, all of which exhibit different urban morphologies, have been evaluated. Statistics have been assessed in consideration of the orientation and slope values of the rooftops as circular data, and the radiation values as linear data. The three dissimilar urban morphologies result in different solar potential values, and the monthly disaggregation of the data enables the ability to detect the differences existing in the solar potential between each zone, during each month. The proposed analysis could also be extrapolated to urban planning for the design of more sustainable cities to face the challenges associated with climate change.

The utilization of solar energy is one of the best effective methods to combat the climate change. The estimation of solar potential in urban areas can vary depending on the urban morphology. This paper performs a directional statistical analysis of the distribution of the monthly solar potential of rooftops in Cáceres city, related to the orientation of the rooftops in different neighborhoods. The orientation values of the roofs will be treated as a directional data and the radiation values as a linear data. The circular graphics representing the orientation data is a suitable representation of the distribution of the buildings being related with the urban framework.