National 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

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

National 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 National 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 23 December 2025 with data extracted on 10 December 2025.

• This release is a full national data population for Version 1.2 of the National Solar product, described by the National 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	Bayside Council	51
NSW	Blacktown City Council	194
NSW	Blue Mountains City Council	14
NSW	Burwood Council	7
NSW	Camden Council	33
NSW	Campbelltown City Council	13
NSW	Canterbury-Bankstown Council	109
NSW	Cessnock City Council	91
NSW	City of Canada Bay Council	20
NSW	City of Parramatta Council	84
NSW	Council of the City of Sydney	26
NSW	Cumberland Council	72
NSW	Fairfield City Council	102
NSW	Georges River Council	28
NSW	Hawkesbury City Council	45
NSW	Inner West Council	35
NSW	Ku-ring-gai Council	48
NSW	Lake Macquarie City Council	3
NSW	Lane Cove Municipal Council	10
NSW	Liverpool City Council	241
NSW	Maitland City Council	3
NSW	Mosman Municipal Council	9
NSW	North Sydney Council	10
NSW	Northern Beaches Council	70
NSW	Penrith City Council	250
NSW	Randwick City Council	36
NSW	Ryde City Council	41
NSW	Singleton Council	8
NSW	Strathfield Municipal Council	14
NSW	Sutherland Shire Council	2
NSW	The Council of the Municipality of Hunters Hill	6
NSW	The Council of the Shire of Hornsby	73
NSW	The Hills Shire Council	204
NSW	Tweed Shire Council	1
NSW	Unincorporated - Botany Bay Area	2
NSW	Unincorporated - Sydney Harbour Area	31
NSW	Waverley Council	9
NSW	Willoughby City Council	22
NSW	Wollondilly Shire Council	24
NSW	Woollahra Municipal Council	12
QLD	Brisbane City	592
QLD	Bundaberg Regional	103
QLD	Fraser Coast Regional	43
QLD	Gold Coast City	317
QLD	Ipswich City	247
QLD	Livingstone Shire	3
QLD	Logan City	2
QLD	Moreton Bay City	573
QLD	Noosa Shire	54
QLD	Redland City	31
QLD	Rockhampton Regional	71
QLD	Scenic Rim Regional	2
QLD	Sunshine Coast Regional	361
WA	City of Swan	145
WA	Shire of Mundaring	3
Total		4,600

^ 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

Geoscape’s Solar product has transitioned to ‘National Solar’, 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 identified approximately 200,000 existing solar polygons where the solar_type attribute changed from Polycrystalline to Monocrystalline. This trend continued in subsequent releases: around 400,000 polygons were affected in June 2025, and about 500,000 in September 2025. The December 2025 release shows a similar pattern, with an additional ~500,000 changes. We are working closely with our data supplier to ensure that the assignment of this attribute is accurate and consistent with real-world conditions.

Versioning Update (Effective June 2026)

Beginning June 2026, all data products will transition to a standardised versioning format: MAJOR-MINOR-EXTRACT (e.g., 004-000-001). This approach provides a clear and consistent structure, making it easier for users to identify product versions and understand update levels at a glance. The change is intended to improve transparency, reduce ambiguity, and support more efficient integration and usage of our data products.

Issues

New Issues

No new issues.

Resolved Issues

No resolved issues.

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 National 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