Rapid urbanization, the increasing effects of climate change, the need to reduce fossil fuels’ dependency as well as to improve cities’ resiliency are accelerating the shift towards renewable energy. Additionally, unnecessary complex roof morphologies that are often pushed by suburban divisions’ developers to make houses look more “opulent” and appealing to homebuyers, also impede the smooth integration of active solar technologies. To address this, and to respond to increasing homebuyers’ interest in renewable energy, this study looks to demonstrate how relatively minor design changes could affect the potential for solar generation and create ‘solar ready’ homes without compromising on the aesthetic of the roof morphologies in styles expected by homebuyers. It looked at six different roof morphological forms ranging from small to large houses, a common suburban house archetype in Canada. The roof configurations were remodelled to remove ‘fake dormers’, minimise ridges and valleys, etc. This process helped maximize the south, south-east, south-west, east and west facing surfaces. The results show that these changes could have a significant impact on the magnitude of solar power generation. The power output from a remodelled neighborhood at an optimized orientation exceeded the community’s electricity demand by 24%.

With a growing population and the inevitable increase in demand for energy, cities planners and developers need to design communities that are sustainable and resilient to meet the ever growing challenges of the 21st century. Solar energy is a viable attribute to our current energy production and, as this research indicates, provides an opportunity to move towards a renewable energy system. Solar ready homes can help bridge the transition from non-renewable to renewable energy sources, by provide infrastructure that has the ability to exploit solar resources. The overall objective of this research is to quantify the potential solar energy generated from roofs in a typical contemporary housing development built in southern Ontario through simulations. Further analysis showed that small simplified modification to the original roof typography can increase solar electrical production in some cases as high as 47%. Furthermore, by pooling the solar electrical production of a cluster of homes that represent a block in a typical contemporary neighbourhood, simulation were conducted and showed that significantly portion of the blocks electrical consumption could be offset through roof top solar generation.

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With a growing population and the inevitable increase in demand for energy, cities planners and developers need to design communities that are sustainable and resilient to meet the ever growing challenges of the 21st century. Solar energy is a viable attribute to our current energy production and, as this research indicates, provides an opportunity to move towards a renewable energy system. Solar ready homes can help bridge the transition from non-renewable to renewable energy sources, by provide infrastructure that has the ability to exploit solar resources. The overall objective of this research is to quantify the potential solar energy generated from roofs in a typical contemporary housing development built in southern Ontario through simulations. Further analysis showed that small simplified modification to the original roof typography can increase solar electrical production in some cases as high as 47%. Furthermore, by pooling the solar electrical production of a cluster of homes that represent a block in a typical contemporary neighbourhood, simulation were conducted and showed that significantly portion of the blocks electrical consumption could be offset through roof top solar generation.