Solar energy is nowadays one of the most used renewable energy sources. The photovoltaic systems mounted on rooftops are the most common way to produce electrical energy. One of the biggest problems is the search for suitable surfaces for the installation of photovoltaic systems. The solar potential is one of the better known metrics to calculate how much solar irradiance a given surface receives throughout the year. For more accurate calculation the geographical, topographical, and astronomical factors are considered. Processing LiDAR (Light Detection And Ranging) data enables massive retrieval of the surfaces' topography. Furthermore, the shadowing from the surrounding objects is considered, which decrease the amount of irradiance. In order to achieve a higher accuracy, diffuse and direct irradiance are considered. Diffuse irradiance is created by atmospheric perturbation of the direct irradiance.

The municipality of Beltinci is made out of 8 local regions: Beltinci, Bratonci, Dokležovje, Gančani, Ižakovci, Lipa, Lipovci and Melinci, which have an total area of 62.28km2, and population of cca. 8770. The DOFPOLO (slo. DOLOČANJE FOTOVOLTAIČNEGA POTENCIALA V LOKALNEM OKOLJU) project was established, in order to calculate phohotovoltaic potential in a local region, specifically for the municipality of Beltinci. The project was co-financed by the Slovenian government and the EU (Investing in your future). The web application enables automatic and approximate prediction of the solar and photovoltaic potentials of the buildings roofs, which provides efficient search of the optimal surfaces for installation of photovoltaic systems.

This project was co-financed from the ministry of education, science, and sport, as well the European Regional Development Fund.

All the calculations are prone to some deviations in the amount of the produced electrical energy.
The used data within the project: LiDAR data, meteorological irradiance meassurements from Slovenian Environment Agency, as well as Public Information of Slovenia, Surveying and Mapping Authority of the Republic of Slovenia, orthophoto (2013) and catastre data (15.01.2013).