Distributed Solar Photovoltaic Array Location and Extent Data Set for Remote Sensing Object Identification

The components of energy systems that are visible from above may be assessed with these remote sensing data when combined with machine learning methods. Here we focus on the information gap in distributed solar photovoltaic (PV) arrays, of which there is limited data on solar PV deployments at small geographic scales.

We created a machine learning dataset to develop the process of automatically identifying solar PV locations through the use of remote sensing imagery. This dataset contains the geospatial coordinates and border vertices for 19,863 solar panels across 601 high resolution images from four cities in California. Dataset applications include training object detection and other machine learning algorithms that use remote sensing imagery, developing specific algorithms for predictive detection of distributed PV systems, and analysis of the socioeconomic correlates of PV deployment.