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 30 September 2025 with data extracted on 25 September 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)
ACT	Australian Capital Territory	498
NSW	Bathurst Regional Council	391
NSW	Burwood Council	5
NSW	City of Canada Bay Council	15
NSW	Council of the City of Sydney	15
NSW	Inner West Council	17
NSW	Ku-ring-gai Council	1
NSW	Lane Cove Municipal Council	10
NSW	Mosman Municipal Council	9
NSW	North Sydney Council	10
NSW	Northern Beaches Council	7
NSW	Oberon Council	16
NSW	Queanbeyan-Palerang Regional Council	76
NSW	Ryde City Council	14
NSW	The Council of the Municipality of Hunters Hill	6
NSW	Unincorporated - Sydney Harbour Area	27
NSW	Waverley Council	5
NSW	Willoughby City Council	15
NSW	Woollahra Municipal Council	12
NSW	Yass Valley Council	2
SA	Adelaide Hills Council	4
SA	Adelaide Plains Council	50
SA	Campbelltown City Council	24
SA	City of Adelaide	15
SA	City of Burnside	25
SA	City of Charles Sturt	55
SA	City of Holdfast Bay	14
SA	City of Marion	56
SA	City of Mitcham	55
SA	City of Onkaparinga	179
SA	City of Playford	105
SA	City of Port Adelaide Enfield	92
SA	City of Prospect	8
SA	City of Salisbury	104
SA	City of Tea Tree Gully	66
SA	City of Unley	14
SA	City of West Torrens	37
SA	Light Regional Council	33
SA	The Barossa Council	5
SA	The City of Norwood Payneham and St Peters	15
SA	The Corporation of the Town of Walkerville	4
SA	Town of Gawler	40
VIC	Banyule City	52
VIC	Bayside City	30
VIC	Cardinia Shire	80
VIC	Casey City	282
VIC	Darebin City	41
VIC	Frankston City	129
VIC	Glen Eira City	12
VIC	Greater Dandenong City	129
VIC	Hobsons Bay City	2
VIC	Hume City	40
VIC	Kingston City	91
VIC	Knox City	67
VIC	Macedon Ranges Shire	16
VIC	Manningham City	44
VIC	Maroondah City	37
VIC	Melton City	167
VIC	Merri-Bek City	22
VIC	Monash City	19
VIC	Moorabool Shire	39
VIC	Mornington Peninsula Shire	294
VIC	Nillumbik Shire	105
VIC	Warrnambool City	39
VIC	Whittlesea City	149
VIC	Wyndham City	57
VIC	Yarra Ranges Shire	241
WA	City of Armadale	142
WA	City of Bayswater	35
WA	City of Belmont	40
WA	City of Canning	65
WA	City of Cockburn	111
WA	City of Fremantle	20
WA	City of Gosnells	126
WA	City of Kalamunda	108
WA	City of Mandurah	125
WA	City of Melville	53
WA	City of Nedlands	20
WA	City of Perth	20
WA	City of Rockingham	48
WA	City of South Perth	20
WA	City of Stirling	44
WA	City of Subiaco	6
WA	City of Swan	187
WA	City of Vincent	11
WA	City of Wanneroo	467
WA	Shire of Chittering	34
WA	Shire of Gingin	47
WA	Shire of Mundaring	28
WA	Shire of Murray	446
WA	Shire of Peppermint Grove	1
WA	Shire of Serpentine-Jarrahdale	339
WA	Shire of Waroona	11
WA	Town of Bassendean	10
WA	Town of Cambridge	19
WA	Town of Claremont	5
WA	Town of Cottesloe	4
WA	Town of East Fremantle	4
WA	Town of Mosman Park	4
WA	Town of Victoria Park	18
Total		6,953

^ 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

‘National’ Branding

Over the coming months, Geoscape products will transition to ‘National’ branding, reflecting our focus on a smarter, safer and more productive Australia and our role in the national interest.

Reduced assignment of Polycrystalline solar_type

In the March 2025 release, we become aware of approximately 200,000 previously existing solar polygons that have changed solar_type from ‘Polycrystalline’ to ‘Monocrystalline’. This trend has continued for the June 2025 release with approximately 400,000 affected, as well as for the September 2025 release with approximately 500,000 affected. 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

WA Buildings Overrepresentation

There were source data issues in the June 2025 release for two areas in Western Australia that caused incorrect inflation in the number of buildings represented. We have applied fixes to these areas which has resulted in a ~4% count decrease in WA building records. This has resulted in a legitimate decrease in solar_building records.

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		ACT	NSW	NT	OT	QLD	SA	TAS	VIC	WA	TOTAL
solar	Additional	0	39,129	0	0	59,661	7,605	79,525	382,587	17,512	586,019
	Retired	0	9,305	0	0	13,654	0	0	247,414	0	270,373
	Updated	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
	Total	129,928	1,706,714	43,459	0	1,855,848	635,206	79,525	1,251,328	1,029,188	6,731,196
	% Change	0.00%	1.78%	0.00%	0.00%	2.54%	1.21%	100.00%	12.11%	1.73%	4.92%
solar_solar_address	Total	298,010	3,239,124	82,959	0	2,337,873	813,349	93,818	2,795,132	1,538,812	11,199,077
solar_address	Total	202,981	3,583,973	76,541	52	2,235,473	812,943	240,737	3,119,614	1,181,368	11,453,682
solar_building	Total	240,653	4,246,052	118,337	337	3,103,461	1,350,208	436,195	4,020,779	1,760,302	15,276,324