Data-Driven Methods for Building Solar Potential Evaluation: A Review Across Rooftops and Facades

Haoshan Ren; Zhisheng Huang; Junyi Yang; Natasa Nord; Yongjun Sun; Yafeng Gao

doi:10.59717/ipj.energy-use.2026.100057

Energy Use > 2026 Vol. 2 > No. 2 > 100057

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Data-Driven Methods for Building Solar Potential Evaluation: A Review Across Rooftops and Facades

1.
State Key Laboratory of Subtropical Building and Urban Science, School of Architecture, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510641, China
2.
Energy and Process Engineering, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim NO-7491, Norway
3.
Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China
4.
Chongqing University, Joint International Research Laboratory of Green Building and Built Environment, Ministry of Education, Chongqing 400044, China

Fund Project: This work is supported by Guangdong Province Zhujiang Talent Program (No. 2024QN11G393), Guangzhou 2025 Basic and Applied Basic Research Special Topics (No. SL2024A04J01716), and HORIZON-MSCA-2023-PF-01 Project, SMOOTHER (No. 101151073).

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Corresponding author: gaoyafeng79@cqu.edu.cn
Received Date: May 30, 2026

Accepted Date: June 22, 2026

Published Online: June 25, 2026

Energy Use 2(2), https://doi.org/10.59717/ipj.energy-use.2026.100057 | Cite this article

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PUBLIC SUMMARY

PUBLIC SUMMARY
1. Building solar potential assessment has evolved from statistical models to physics-deep learning hybrids.
  
  Facades offer solar potential comparable to rooftops but remain significantly understudied.
  
  Several studies achieved either large spatial scale or good temporal/spatial detail, but rarely all simultaneously.
  
  Validation data, benchmark datasets, and scalable high-resolution methods remain critical gaps.

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Ren H., Huang Z., Yang J., et al. (2026). Data-Driven Methods for Building Solar Potential Evaluation: A Review Across Rooftops and Facades. Energy Use 2:100057. https://doi.org/10.59717/ipj.energy-use.2026.100057

Ren H., Huang Z., Yang J., et al. (2026). Data-Driven Methods for Building Solar Potential Evaluation: A Review Across Rooftops and Facades. Energy Use 2:100057. https://doi.org/10.59717/ipj.energy-use.2026.100057

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