Industrial Rooftop Space:
Survey of Rooftop Area in San Bernadino
The Los Angeles basin holds California's largest urban area.
The graphic below illustrates a survey of
rooftop space in one portion of the Los Angeles Basin
in the vicinity of the Ontario International Airport
in San Bernadino.
The graphic,
based on a satellite image from
Google maps (left)
covers an area of approximately
416 square kilometers.
The orange regions indicate large rooftop spaces.
These regions constitute about 13 percent of the total area shown,
or about 54 square kilometers.
How much energy could be generated by completely covering
this area with solar panels?
It depends on the efficiency of the panels.
Consider the peak power that could be generated
by covering this area of 54 million square meters
with each of three different types of solar panels,
assuming a peak solar flux of 1000 watts per square meter.
| panel type |
peak efficiency |
peak power |
|
percent |
gigawatts |
| thin film CIGS |
12 |
6.48 |
| monocrystalline silicon |
20 |
10.80 |
| HCPV |
36 |
19.44 |
Even the estimate using the least-efficient solar panels
is twenty times as great as the peak power of the world's largest
operational solar facility --
the
SEGS (Solar Electricity Generating Systems)
in the Mojave Desert.
