Assessment of policy based residential solar PV potential using GIS-based multicriteria decision analysis: A case study of Apeldoorn, the Netherlands

The Postal Code Rose policy is part of the 2013 Dutch Energy Agreement of the Social and Economic Council of the Netherlands, introduced to support sustainable energy growth. This paper presents a case of the Dutch Postal code Rose policy by developing a method combining geographical information systems (GIS) and multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA), which allows determining the solar photovoltaic potential when fully applying this policy. As case study, the city of Apeldoorn in the Gelderland province of the Netherlands was selected. The research evaluates the technical potential of the city and then applies it to the Postal code Rose framework by using social criteria. The social criteria comprise of the most important factors that play a role in the adoption of solar PV. The results showed that by fully applying the Post Code Rose policy ~77% of the total electricity demand of Apeldoorn could be covered by solar PV.