Datenpaket: Photovoltaic Systems: Reference Data on Rooftop and Ground-Mounted Installations

This dataset provides pixel-wise annotations of photovoltaic (PV) systems at a spatial resolution of 0.2 m, distinguishing between rooftop PV (RTPV) and ground-mounted PV (GMPV). Two types of labels are included: (1) automatic annotations, available only for the state of Hesse, derived from geospatial sources; and (2) manually curated annotations for selected areas in Hesse and North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), produced using high-resolution orthoimagery from Hesse and openNRW. The label data are provided without imagery, enabling integration with arbitrary remote sensing sources for applications such as PV detection and segmentation.

The automatic annotations were generated using geospatial sources including OpenStreetMap (OSM), the Official Topographic-Cartographic Information System (ATKIS), and data from the Leibniz Institute of Ecological Urban and Regional Development (IOER) in Dresden. After merging these sources, GMPV installations were supplemented with data from Manske, D. (2025), “Geo-locations and System Data of Renewable Energy Installations in Germany,” Zenodo. doi:10.5281/zenodo.14627853.

The dataset is distributed as GeoTIFF files, each named according to its corresponding orthoimage tile. For manually annotated labels, the final segment of the file name indicates the reference year of the source imagery. All data are projected in EPSG:25832 (ETRS89 / UTM zone 32N). Raster pixel values are encoded as follows: 0 for background, 1 for RTPV, and 2 for GMPV.

The corresponding aerial imagery can be downloaded from the following sources:
for Hesse: Digitales Orthophoto © Hessisches Landesamt für Bodenmanagement und Geoinformation (HVBG), 2021/22. (https://gds.hessen.de)
for NRW: Geobasis NRW - Open Data © Digitale Geobasisdaten NRW, Ministerium für Heimat, Kommunales, Bau und Digitalisierung des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen, 2021/22/23/24 (https://open.nrw/dataset/)