Critigen

Critigen and The City of San Francisco: The First City to Implement a Citywide Solar Map Continues to Lead the Way on Green GIS.

Posted: 12/16/2009

In a recent article published by GITA.

Critigen and the City of San Francisco have been working together over the last three years to develop and grow the solar map. The first citywide solar map, which mapped all buildings, started as an idea from the San Francisco’ Environmental Department (SF Environment). This group has been instrumental in helping the residents and businesses of San Francisco take an active role to protect and improve the environment.

By mapping the existing solar installations, the City of San Francisco was hoping to inspire new installations. This map has allowed the city not only to promote solar, but to also offer details that are useful to help a citizen make a decision and take immediate action.  By using Critigen’s S.A.F.E. (Solar Automated Feature Extraction) software analysis, instead of the traditional method, Critigen has been able to improved the method of building models of the features of each rooftop as well as the time it takes to do a rooftop analysis.

“In the 18-month period after the map was launched, we saw the number of installations more than double and the amount of electricity generated more than triple.” said David Herrmann, Vice President, Critigen. “As more and more installations happen around the city, case studies of some of the most successful installations are featured on the map. People like to see this has been done successfully,” Herrmann said.

SF Environment updates the solar map quarterly, a process that usually takes about 24 hours. The installers are also using this map as a marketing tool to show the recent installations they have completed.

San Francisco has a goal of reaching 50 megawatts of renewable energy, including solar, by 2012.

To view the City of San Francisco’s Map, visit http://sf.solarmap.org

Geospatial Infrastructure & Technology Association http://www.gita.org/