Solar Cadaster of Geneva: A Decision Support System for Sustainable Energy Management

Cities play an increasingly important role with regards to energy transition. Main goal is to reach international and national (Swiss) targets related to energy efficiency and CO₂ emission reduction. As a contribution to these global challenges, during the last 6 years the State of Geneva has been producing a detailed solar cadaster. In order to facilitate periodical updates of this solar cadaster, the iCeBOUND project was launched. Around 10 public and private stakeholders, all linked within the Geneva Territorial Information System (SITG), collaborated on the project. Its aim was to design and develop a cloud-based Decision Support System (DSS) that leverages 3D digital urban data with high computing performance, hence facilitating environmental analyses in large built areas, like solar energy potential assessment. As result of the project, an official geoportal and a newfangled public web interface were made widely available early 2017, so as to strengthen decision making with regards to solar installation investment.