Sizing Solar Panels and Storage for Multiple Roofs

Choosing the number of solar panels and the amount of storage needed to meet a certain fraction of the load in a microgrid setting is a difficult problem that needs to balance the competing objectives of efficiency, robustness, and cost. Prior work in this area makes the unrealistic assumption that solar panels are to be installed on a single roof that is capable of supporting all the panels required. In reality, we may need to deploy solar panels on several roof segments, each of limited size, and each with its own tilt, orientation and installation cost. This paper presents an algorithm for sizing solar panels and storage in this context. We evaluate the robustness of our approach using traces derived from the Pecan Street Dataport dataset and demonstrate the value of our approach by using it to size a hypothetical installation on the British Antarctic Survey's research base in Antarctica.