Act 174 Energy Planning Mapping Standards: GIS Support Methodology

VT Center for Geographic Information
Act 174 Energy Planning Mapping Standards: GIS Support Methodology
Version1.1

Updates

V.1.2: January 2017

If you have questions about this document, or would like to check for the newest version, contact us:

VT Center for Geographic Information

Agency of Commerce and Community Development

802-828-3211

vcgi.vermont.gov

1 National Life Drive, Davis Bldg, 6th Floor

Montpelier, VT 05620-0501

Overview

Deliverables

Table 1: Overview of Deliverables:

Table 2: Deliverables Update History

Project Info

Programming Overview:

Future Model Updates:

Table 3: Overview of Model Builder “Models”

QAQC Procedures:

Renewable Energy Datasets:

Solar Potential Input:

Wind Potential Inputs:

Table 4: Input Wind Data Layers

Infrastructure Resources: TBD

Appendix A: Overview of Layers on VCGI Act 174 – Energy Planning Mapping Standards Web Page

Table 5: Known Constraints

Table 6: Possible Constraints

Appendix B: Updating Existing Electric Generation Sources

Appendix C: Updating Transmission and Distribution Resources & Constraints

Overview

Act 174 of 2016establishes a new set of municipal and regional energy planning standards that when applied, provide for those plans to carry greater weight, i.e., “substantial deference”, in the Section 248 siting process for energy generation. To enable towns and their associated Regional Planning Commissions (RPCs) to comply with this Act, VCGI implemented the Energy Planning Standards for Municipal Plans, by modeling both solar and wind renewable energy in accordance with the known and possible constraints. For the full reference see links to the relevant GIS data specified in the ‘Mapping Standards’ section of the Department of Public Service (DPS) implementation standard of the Act (ACT 174 RECOMMENDATIONS AND DETERMINATION STANDARDS).

In support of Act 174 efforts, VCGI is employing the best available supporting datalayers noted in the standard to model Potential Renewable Energy (Solar and Wind) in concert with Known and Possible Constraints, and supporting Infrastructure layers.These data will be made publicly available for download and may also be published to a publicly visible web site in the future. Data will become available on the following web page:

Deliverables

See Appendix A for list of individual constraints, renewable potential and infrastructure files.

Known Constraints:Both individual and merged shapefile formats will be made available by COB Friday, January 6, 2017;
Possible Constraints: Both individual and merged shapefile formats may be made available by COB Friday, January 6, 2017;
Raw Renewable Potential:Per requirements of municipal and regional energy planning standards, (p.10, section 11.A) areas of “Known Constraints” will be removed and “Possible Constraints” will be identified in these layers:
Solar Potential: “Unfiltered” ground mount Solar analysis from the 2010 Renewable Energy Atlas of VT project;and
Wind Potential: Using 30m, 50m and 70m “hub height” data from the 2004 Massachusetts Technology Collaborate/NREL project.
Infrastructure Resources:These layers require a full project level effort to develop: 1) Existing Electric Generation Sources (See Appendix B); and 2) Transmission and Distribution resources & constraints (See Appendix C).

Table 1: Overview of Deliverables: (Version notes below)
Layer[1] / Description
ConstraintsKnown_Act174v#.shp / All “Known Constraints” merged into single “flat” ESRI shapefile format.
ConstraintsPossible_Act174v#.shp / All “Possible Constraints” merged into single “flat” ESRI shapefile format.
EnvironOther_SOLARact174v#.shp / Statewide ground based (30m USGS DEM) solar potential layer created w\ESRI solar analyst. Filtered by SLOPE (LTE 14%), ASPECT (90-270 Degrees) and values GTE 1,000 kWh/Sq. Mtr. “Known constraints” removed and output to ESRI shapefile. Attributed with varying units (Wh/m2) and (kWh/m2)
EnvironOther_WINDact174v#.shp / 30m, 50m & 70m MTC wind speed layers filtered for minimum wind speed, then merged into single ESRI shapefile with “known constraints” removed.

Table 2: Deliverables Update History

Release / Date / Description
v.2 Update release / 1/6/17 / Updates include:

Removed “Known Constraints” - “VSWI Wetlands Advisory Layer” (CLASS = 0, 4(presumed Class 2) from both Solar & Wind data;
Removed sliver features along perimeter of state boundary (with blank “INITIALS” (RPC) values) from both Solar & Wind data;
Passed Final QAQC review.

v.1 Initial Release / 12/19/16 / Initial release of four deliverables

Project Info

ACCD Project Directory:S:\VCGI\VCGI-ProjectManagement\Projects\Act_174;
Act 174 – Energy Planning Mapping Standards web page:
Data Overview Spreadsheet: ~\4.0 Technical Documents\Act174_EnergyPlanningMapping_Resourcess_Constraint Layers.xlsx
Code directory:~\5.0 Construction and Testing\code
Master (Model Builder) models reside here: ~\toolbox\act174energymapping.tbx
Python equivalents exported from models here: ~\python\*
QAQC directory: ~\5.0 Construction and Testing\QAQC

Programming Overview:

VCGI employed the ESRI Model Builderto leverage the object-oriented programming environment and ease of visually inspecting outputs within ArcGIS desktop. Copies of the models are available upon request.

Future Model Updates:

These recently identified elements will be integrated into the models before the next full update. The critical ones have already been manually applied (in bold) to the current release (version 2).

Integrate “Wetlands Advisory Layer” into “Known Constraints” model and rerun, then rerun both Solar and Wind models.
Integrate Town Boundaries into “Possible Constraints” to afford town level analysis.
ID where Town Boundaries entered “Known Constraints” layer?
Remove all sliver features along VT State boundary perimeter, e.g.,(INITIALS = “”)
Remove extraneous attributes from final EnvironOther_SolarAct174 and *_WINDAct174 layers (now that process has been validated).
Repoint all inputs to SDE equivalents (where possible, to keep inputs as up to date as possible).

Table 3: Overview of Model Builder “Models”

Model / Outputs / Description
01a_Create_Known_Constraints / Act174_ConstraintsKnown_Model.shp / Takes all individual input constraints and outputs merged "flat" shapefile.
01b_Create_Possible_Constraints / Act174_ConstraintsPossible_Model.shp / Takes all individual input constraints and outputs merged "flat" shapefile.
01c_Creation_RESites / TBD
02a_PreProcess_SolarDataInput / Environ_SOLAR_poly_AreaPV_Dissolve / Unconstrained 10m Area Solar Radiation data from 2009/2010 VT Sustainable Jobs Fund project used as input. Filtered by SLOPE (LTE 14%), ASPECT (90-270 Degrees) and finally by solar insolation values GTE 1,000 kWh/Sq. Mtr (gets ride of shrapnel on low end of scale).
02b_PreProcess_MTC_Wind / Applies wind speed threshold to MTC 30m, 50m & 70m wind speed datasets to prep as input.
03a_SOLARact174_wConstraints / Applies slope and aspect constraints, clips out "Known" constraints and UNIONs with "Possible" constraints.
03b_WINDact174_wConstraints / this model merges 30, 50 & 70m wind layers, clips out "Known" constraints and UNIONs with "Possible" constraints.

QAQC Procedures:

Quality Assurance: The Windham Regional Commission conducted a manual review of their member towns extent and helped identify the “VSWI Wetland Advisory Layer” features to be incorrectly missing from the analysis.

Quality Assurance: VCGI implemented the National Standard for Spatial Data Accuracy protocol of selecting 50 random points for testing accuracy of the modeled solar and wind data. 50 random points were generated within the land-only extent of the state of Vermont (excluding Lake Champlain, including islands). These points were intersected with finalized known constraints and possible constraints layers, and fields populated based on this intersection:
Results – Appendix D presents results of automated random point review. Points located within known constraints were confirmed to not intersect final solar and wind layers through select-by-attribute tool. Points located within possible constraints were confirmed to be marked as possible constraints in final solar and wind layers through visual assessment. All points confirmed accuracy of constraints. Therefore, all layers created successfully incorporate and reflect areas with no constraints and “possible constraints,” and successfully exclude “known constraints.”

Quality Control: VCGI conducted an internal independent review of the completeness and model logic for code used in producing the final renewable layers. Model logic was tested by checking the source layers, referencing the specifications put forward in the municipal and regional energy planning standards, and running checks using select-by-attribute tool. In the case of class-specific constraints, checks were run to ensure that the proper codes were incorporated or excluded.
Results – Model was confirmed to be complete and logical. All source layers were incorporated into possible constraints and known constraints layers, respectively. Class-specific constraints were verified and reflect the proper classes.

Testing downloads: The zipfiles available on the VCGI Act 174 web page were tested as follows prior to posting:

Download most recent zipfiles from the Act 174 web site to: ~\Act_174\gisdata\EnergyPlanningMapping\zipfiles
Decompress into the appropriate Known vs Possible folder: ~\Act_174\gisdata\EnergyPlanningMapping\shapefiles\
Open blank ArcGIS map document and reviewed for completeness.

Renewable Energy Datasets:

Solar Potential Input:

The best available statewide solar source data used in this effort was originally created by VCGI in 2010 under contract with the Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund for the Renewable Energy Atlas of Vermont project. This data is not currently publicly available on the Vermont Open GeoData Portal.The parent data “Environ_Solar_raster_ASR_raw” is the raw modeled potential and is unconstrained, whereas the child data “EnvironOther_Solar” layer was the final output of the Energy Atlas of VT effort and reflects different constraints than those outlined in the Act 174 Energy Mapping Standards. While the child version was used by BCRC in their prototyping analysis, this effort employed the parent versionto apply the Act 174 constraints.

Please note the following:

The “Raw parent” solar data analysis for the entire state has no constraints applied and is based on the 1:24k USGS 30m DEM(however, it was resampled to a 10m resolution to match the VCGI VTHYDRODEM product).
Until metadata is created for the Act 174 effort, a general overview of this data still resides on the atlas site:

The following pre-processing steps were applied to the solar renewable energy layer before removing the known constraints (Erdas Imagine raster of solar radiation potential originally in units of watt hours/sq. mtr.), originally created in the 2010 VT Energy Atlas effort, e.g, “raw” Area Solar Radiation (ASR).

Filtered ASR layer to retain only data cells with E-S-W facing Aspect (90-270) and Slopes <=14% and insolation values GT 1,000 kWh/mtr sq. (the adjacent histogram of solar values supports this breakpoint value as well within 2 standard deviations (99%).

Model also filters out DISSOLVED features <= 400 sq. mtrs (equivalent to four 10m cells).

Wind Potential Inputs:

The best available statewide wind potential data are the 30m, 50m & 70m hub height wind speed layers from the MA Technology Collaborative (ClimateOther_WINDSPD*M) are the best publicly available statewide wind data currently available. The “EnvironOther_WIND” layer available on the VT Open GeoData portal is not viable as it is constrained with different individual layers than those in Act 174 and those constraints are now dated (~2009).

The source wind data was filtered out by wind speed threshold values (see Table 1. Input Wind Data Layers), respective of the hub height source data.

Table 4: Input Wind Data Layers

Layer / Source / Threshold Value* / Description
ClimateOther_WINDSPD30M / MA Tech. Collaborative / 4.5 m/s / Predicted wind speed at 30m height
ClimateOther_WINDSPD50M** / MTC / 5.5 m/s / Predicted wind speed at 50m height
ClimateOther_WINDSPD70M / MTC / 6.5 m/s / Predicted wind speed at 70m height
*- From Anne Margolis DPS
** - TBD (not to be confused with currently available ClimateOther_WINDPWR50M (mean power W/Sq. Mtr.)

Infrastructure Resources: TBD?

Existing Electric Generation Sources
Transmission and distribution resources and constraints, as well as transportation infrastructure

Appendix A: Overview of Layers on VCGI Act 174 – Energy Planning Mapping Standards Web Page[2]

NOTE: Most of these data are also available as services from VT ANR Open Data:

Table 5: Known Constraints

LAYER / SOURCE / NOTES
Vernal Pools / VT Open Geodata Portal links: (verified 1/13/17)
1)AE/VCE Confirmed Vernal Pools
2)AE/VCE Unconfirmed Vernal Pools) / 50’ buffer applied to all point data as noted for wetlands in metadata
DEC River Corridors / VT Open Geodata Portal links: (verified 1/13/17)
1)DEC River Corridors
FEMA DFIRM Floodways / VT Open Geodata Portal links: (verified 1/13/17)
1)DFIRM Floodways / Less than whole state coverage
State-significant Natural Communities and Rare, Threatened, and
Endangered Species / VT Open Geodata Portal links: (verified 1/13/17)
1)RTE and Significant Natural Communities / “State-significant Natural Communities and Rare, Threatened, and Endangered Species” = All features
Vermont (National) Wilderness Areas / VT Open Geodata Portal packaged zipfile: (verified 1/17/17)
1)National Wilderness Areas
Class 1 and Class 2 Wetlands / VT Open Geodata Portal links: (verified 1/13/17)
1)VSWI (June 4 2010) Wetlands Class Layer
2)VSWI (June 4 2010) Wetlands Advisory Layer / Wetland Class Lyr (all features). Wetland Advisory Layerquery: “CLASS = ‘’ AND CLASS = ‘4’” (4 = presumed Class 2 wetlands)
Regionally or Locally Identified Critical Resources / TBD by towns and/or RPCs.

Table 6: Possible Constraints

LAYER / SOURCE / NOTES
VT Agriculturally Important Soils / VT Open Geodata Portal links: (verified 1/13/17)
1)GeologicSoils_SOAG
FEMA Special Flood Hazard Areas / VT Open Geodata Portal links: (verified 1/13/17)
1)FEMA Special Flood Hazard Areas / NOTE: Less than whole state coverage100-year flood = Zones labeled as: A, AO, AH, s A1-A30, AE, A99, AR, AR/AE, AR/AO, AR/A1-A30, AR/A, V, VE, and V1-V30.
Protected Lands (State fee lands and private conservation lands) / VT Open Geodata Portal links: (verified 1/13/17)
1)CadastralConserved_PROTECTEDLND / Data query applies: ("PTYPE1" = '01' AND ("PAGENCY1" >= '40000' AND "PAGENCY1" < '50000')) OR ("PAGENCY1" >= '50000')
Act 250 Agricultural Soil Mitigation areas / VT Open Geodata Portal links: (verified 1/18/17)
1)Act 250 Agricultural Soil Mitigation areas
Deer Wintering Areas / VT Open Geodata Portal links: (verified 1/13/17)
1)Deer Wintering Areas
ANR’s Vermont Conservation Design Highest Priority Forest Blocks (or Habitat Blocks 9 & 10, for plans that will be submitted for adoption at the regional level by March 1, 2017) / ** Temporary Download link:
ACT174 Vermont Conservation Design Layers:
Consists of the following: (verified 1/13/17)
1)Forest Blocks - Connectivity
2)Forest Blocks – Interior
3)Forest Blocks - Physical Land Division / ** Due to proprietary layer file package file type the Geodata Portal doesn’t currently recognize as “open data”. ANR or VCGI (TBD) will eventually load to VTOGP
Hydric Soils / VT Open Geodata Portal links: (verified 1/13/17)
1)GeologicSoils_SO
2)SOILATTR (Top20) table / Joined top20 table to soils via MUID and queried all records with HYDRIC = “Y”
Regionally or Locally Identified Critical Resources / TBD by towns and/or RPCs.

Appendix B: Updating Existing Electric Generation Sources

<To Be Developed….>

The results of this effort will supersede the existing “EnvironOther_RESITES” layer.

Task Info

EnvironOther RESITES development directory:S:\VCGI\VCGI-Data\DataDev\_DataPrepWorkspace\environ\EnvironOther_RESITES
S:\VCGI\VCGI-ProjectManagement\Projects\Act_174;

Processing Steps:

Unfortunately, the updated data is not in shapefile format so it must be downloaded county-by-county in in comma delimited (csv) file format and imported to shapefile format.

Download updated source data:
Go to the Atlas,
Search 1 county at a time (NOTE! Do not download Washington, Windham, and Windsor until Scott finishes updating them on Friday Nov. 18); and
download the results.
Relocate/rename county files to the development directory:
Rename so suffix is *_<County Acronym_Nov2016.csv, _ChitCty_Nov2016.csv.
(Use same suffix naming in all subsequent steps with “<suffix>” placeholder.
Add a new model (rename “EnvironOther_RESITES_development”) to existing Act174 toolbox in ~/Act174/code directory and draft an import model for one county.
After validating it works let’s confer on how to automate the single model string to import remaining counties with variables (parameters). Alternatively, we may employ Python scripting instead.
Combine individual county shapefiles into a statewide master “
Then combine the counties and that is your master. The last update was in August.

Appendix C: Updating Transmission and Distribution Resources & Constraints

<To Be Developed…. Coordination, outreach and development of this data will be a project unto itself>

Appendix D: Quality Assurance – Automated Random Point Review Table

[1] State of Vermont Act 174 Energy Planning Standards for Municipal Plans, pp.10-13,

[2]

Act 174 Energy Planning Mapping Standards: GIS Support Methodology

Contents

Overview

Deliverables

Table 2: Deliverables Update History

Project Info

Programming Overview:

Future Model Updates:

Table 3: Overview of Model Builder “Models”

QAQC Procedures:

Renewable Energy Datasets:

Solar Potential Input:

Wind Potential Inputs:

Table 4: Input Wind Data Layers

Infrastructure Resources: TBD?

Table 5: Known Constraints

Table 6: Possible Constraints

Task Info

Processing Steps:

Appendix D: Quality Assurance – Automated Random Point Review Table