Solar

Disclaimer

Geoscape Australia believes this publication to be correct at the time of printing and does not accept responsibility for any consequences arising from the use of the information herein. Readers should rely on their own skill and judgement to apply information to particular issues.

This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced by any process without prior written permission of Geoscape Australia.

Overview

Solar is a national digital dataset representing photovoltaic solar panel information across urban areas for each state and territory of Australia. The Solar dataset has relationships with the Buildings and G-NAF products produced by Geoscape Australia.

Solar is populated from two different capture sources and the population of the product schema will vary between these as follows:

• Urban (satellite source) - areas with a population greater than 200, or with significant industrial/commercial activity in a visual assessment, digitised from satellite imagery.

• Urban (aerial source) - areas with a population greater than 200, or with significant industrial/commercial activity in a visual assessment, digitised from aerial imagery.

Geoscape Australia welcomes your feedback on the Solar product. We also publish regular product development updates on our website (www.geoscape.com.au).

Release Summary

This product was released to customers on 31 March 2025 with data extracted on 21 March 2025.

• This release is a full national data population for Version 1.2 of the Solar product, described by the Solar Product Guide v1.2.

Any issues that have been identified for this release are described in the Issues section.

This release includes updates for the areas listed in the table below.

Locations of updated areas by State

State	Location	Urban Area (km2)
NSW	Armidale Regional Council	724
NSW	Ballina Shire Council	312
NSW	Bayside Council	5
NSW	Bellingen Shire Council	16
NSW	Blacktown City Council	7
NSW	Blue Mountains City Council	545
NSW	Byron Shire Council	258
NSW	Camden Council	61
NSW	Campbelltown City Council	206
NSW	Canterbury-Bankstown Council	2
NSW	Central Coast Council	955
NSW	Cessnock City Council	668
NSW	Clarence Valley Council	189
NSW	Coffs Harbour City Council	471
NSW	Dungog Shire Council	243
NSW	Federation Council	75
NSW	Georges River Council	10
NSW	Goulburn Mulwaree Council	751
NSW	Griffith City Council	122
NSW	Hawkesbury City Council	400
NSW	Ku-ring-gai Council	15
NSW	Lake Macquarie City Council	705
NSW	Lismore City Council	239
NSW	Lithgow City Council	53
NSW	Liverpool City Council	67
NSW	Maitland City Council	393
NSW	Mid-Coast Council	22
NSW	Murray River Council	68
NSW	Newcastle City Council	215
NSW	Northern Beaches Council	200
NSW	Parkes Shire Council	168
NSW	Penrith City Council	26
NSW	Port Stephens Council	564
NSW	Shellharbour City Council	104
NSW	Shoalhaven City Council	212
NSW	Singleton Council	165
NSW	Sutherland Shire Council	362
NSW	Tamworth Regional Council	333
NSW	The Council of the Shire of Hornsby	121
NSW	The Hills Shire Council	152
NSW	Tweed Shire Council	34
NSW	Unincorporated - Botany Bay Area	21
NSW	Upper Lachlan Shire Council	14
NSW	Uralla Shire Council	73
NSW	Wagga Wagga City Council	417
NSW	Wingecarribee Shire Council	356
NSW	Wollondilly Shire Council	236
NSW	Wollongong City Council	563
NT	Alice Springs Municipality	262
NT	Darwin Municipality	135
NT	Darwin Waterfront Precinct Municipality	1
NT	Litchfield Municipality	629
NT	MacDonnell Region	140
NT	Northern Territory Rates Act (Prescribed Area A) Area	43
NT	Palmerston Municipality	77
QLD	Brisbane City	20
QLD	Fraser Coast Regional	266
QLD	Gladstone Regional	151
QLD	Gold Coast City	236
QLD	Gympie Regional	182
QLD	Ipswich City	53
QLD	Lockyer Valley Regional	853
QLD	Logan City	354
QLD	Moreton Bay City	499
QLD	Noosa Shire	239
QLD	Redland City	40
QLD	Scenic Rim Regional	274
QLD	Somerset Regional	9
QLD	Sunshine Coast Regional	1,477
QLD	Toowoomba Regional	567
SA	City of Mount Gambier	34
SA	The Corporation of the City of Whyalla	318
SA	The DC of Grant	171
SA	UIA Whyalla	66
TAS	Brighton Council	41
TAS	Burnie City Council	52
TAS	Central Coast Council	37
TAS	Clarence City Council	64
TAS	Glenorchy City Council	37
TAS	Hobart City Council	33
TAS	Kingborough Council	43
TAS	Launceston City Council	118
TAS	Meander Valley Council	24
TAS	Northern Midlands Council	77
TAS	Waratah-Wynyard Council	40
TAS	West Tamar Council	58
VIC	Campaspe Shire	71
VIC	Golden Plains Shire	46
VIC	Greater Bendigo City	256
VIC	Greater Geelong City	693
VIC	Greater Shepparton City	711
VIC	Indigo Shire	155
VIC	Moira Shire	3
VIC	Moyne Shire	12
VIC	Queenscliffe Borough	10
VIC	Strathbogie Shire	9
VIC	Surf Coast Shire	184
VIC	Warrnambool City	75
VIC	Wyndham City	9
WA	City of Albany	141
WA	City of Greater Geraldton	181
WA	City of Kalgoorlie-Boulder	162
WA	Shire of Chapman Valley	33
Total		22,389

^ Location names are derived from intersection with the most recent Local Government Area dataset.

Spatial files of the updated areas are available upon request via support@geoscape.com.au.

Change Notifications

Reduced assignment of Polycrystalline solar_type

In the March 2025 release, we have become aware of approximately 200,000 previously existing solar polygons that have changed solar_type from ‘Polycrystalline’ to ‘Monocrystalline’. We are working with our data supplier to ensure that the assignment of this attribute is consistent and matches the real world.

Issues

New Issues

No new issues.

Resolved Issues

No resolved issues to note.

Known Issues

Solar polygons cut off at the edge of capture areas

Where a solar polygon is captured that crosses the edge of a capture area, the portion of the solar array that is outside will not be included in the product. This occurs in a small number of instances and will result in smaller than real-world solar_area and daily_estimated_power values.

Incorrect capture of solar polygons

Solar hot water heating, swimming pool heating and other rooftop features such as air-conditioning units can incorrectly be captured as solar polygons. These features are removed from the data where possible as they do not represent photovoltaic solar. Geoscape intends to continue to improve our processes to reduce these occurrences over time.

Solar type accuracy for low-resolution capture

Where a solar polygon is captured using imagery with resolution greater than or equal to 10cm, there is a reduction in the correctness of the solar_type classification. This often causes monocrystalline panels to be assigned with a ‘Thin-film’ solar_type value as individual panels cannot be differentiated in the imagery. Daily estimated power outputs for these records will be lower than the real-world value.

Future Considerations

This section outlines enhancements or changes under consideration, but not planned into a specific release. For further details on future initiatives, please contact Geoscape Support.

Z-values

Geoscape is considering including z-values for the solar table that would provide heights for each vertex of a solar polygon. There is potential for this information to be used to derive other attributes, such as the aspect of the solar panel.

Aspect

Geoscape is considering including an ‘aspect’ attribute that would describe the direction that the solar panel is facing. This attribute could potentially be used to improve estimates of the power generated by the solar array.

Improvements to Daily Estimated Power

Geoscape intends to further improve the daily_estimated_power attribute. For this improvement we would potentially assess the impact of the:

• resolution of the imagery used to capture the solar polygon

• aspect of the solar polygon

• roof_shape of the building related to the solar polygon

• surrounding heights of buildings, trees and other features such as mountains that could potentially shade the solar array and reduce the power output

Adjustments to this estimate will be made from the results of this assessment.

Solar polygons that are not related to a building

Geoscape intends to include solar panel polygons that are not rooftop solar. These panels often relate to solar farms and are currently excluded from Solar as they do not relate to a building. The intention would be to link these solar panels to an address.

Annex A – Release Counts

Additional, retired and total Solar counts and the percent change to the previous release have been listed in the table below.

TABLE	STATISTIC	ACT	NSW	NT	OT	QLD	SA	TAS	VIC	WA	TOTAL
solar	Additional	0	810,038	62,623	0	387,431	26,097	58,168	81,800	24,243	1,450,400
	Retired	0	543,217	41,258	0	305,450	8,205	45,652	45,935	18,453	1,008,170
	Updated	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
	Total	184,083	2,288,853	64,824	0	2,171,097	900,104	92,041	1,718,546	1,239,059	8,658,607
	% Change	0.00%	13.2%	49.16%	0.00%	3.92%	2.03%	15.74%	2.13%	0.47%	5.38%
solar_solar_address	Total	526,999	5,653,196	264,316	0	7,020,327	2,024,075	114,838	4,133,492	2,380,701	22,117,944
solar_address	Total	226,403	4,037,230	87,224	105	2,533,396	898,759	263,613	3,334,863	1,277,072	12,658,665
solar_building	Total	250,344	4,505,203	125,393	337	3,228,306	1,437,470	441,178	4,221,611	1,847,154	16,056,996