calculating the solar radiation for every hour in a year (area solar radiation)

Question

Hello

I'm completely new at working with arcgis pro (Vers. 2.9).

I want to create one or if needed more layers which contain the solar radiation for every hour.

I have a DSM available for this purpose. I know that there is the possibility to calculate the yearly sums per pixel, but I would need the solar irradiation per pixel and yearly hour.
Is this possible?
If so, I would appreciate help.

curtvprice · Answer

According to the help page:  Area Solar Radiation (Spatial Analyst) the tool has a parameter to write each output. I highly recommend giving this a try. It could take years to process, depending on the size of your DEM, and the options you choose. Since you are new to Pro, I should mention the raster should be projected (not geographic coordinates). The help page mentions this too. RTFM (Read The F[ine] Manual!) 🙂

The Create outputs for each interval parameter affects the format and number of output radiation files. When checked, the output raster will contain multiple bands that correspond to the radiation or duration values for each time interval (hour interval when time configuration is less than one day, or day interval when multiple days)..

(UPDATE - I copied the wrong part of the help)

Looks like you would need to run model builder or Python to iterate every day - though it probably would take years to run every day every hours.

I suggest attempting running it for one hour of one day with your DEM and see how long it takes and go from there.

CK6 · Answer

Yes I wanted to get the radiation for every hour, every day for a year. (I would like to use it to calculate the photovoltaic potential of the roof surfaces for each hour of the year.)
That the calculation would need it's time was obvious for me. But what do you think how much time it would take ?
 I already thought about building a model, but i hoped there would be an easier way. Is there no other way than iterating the tools? If not, do you have any tips for me to get better into it?

Thanks for your answer and thanks in advance 🙂

curtvprice · Answer

I would start with the Solar Radiation Toolset.

If you already are looking at this, I don't understand what you want, a layer for every hour, every day, for a year (365 x 24 layers?). This could be done by iterating the tools I guess in ModelBuidler or Python, but that could take a while.