Method and system for determining solar access of a structure

A system for determining solar access of a structure, comprising:

• a computer system having one or more processors;
• and,
• one or more non-transitory computer readable medium accessible by the computer system and storing instructions that when executed by the one or more processors of the computer system cause the one or more processors to:
• determine a solar access value for a vertex of a structure by:
• calculating a ray between a sun position and the vertex at a plurality of time periods;
• comparing a path of the ray to location of points in object point cloud data representative of the size, shape, and location of one or more objects in relation to the path of the ray to determine that the one or more objects blocks the ray from reaching the vertex, resulting in a shadow over the vertex for at least one of the plurality of time periods;
• determining maximum possible irradiance values at the vertex for the plurality of time periods, the maximum possible irradiance values based on solar radiation of the rays from above the vertex at the plurality of time periods and on solar irradiance from surrounding ground and atmospheric refractions to the vertex at the plurality of time periods;
• determining a distance between the one or more objects blocking the ray from reaching the vertex and the vertex, based on the location of the one or more objects and a location of the vertex;
• determining effects of the shadow over the vertex on the maximum possible irradiance values for the at least one of the plurality of time periods based on the determined distance and whether the vertex is within an umbra, penumbra, or antumbra of the shadow at the at least one of the plurality of time periods;
• and
• determining irradiance in Watts per time period over the plurality of time periods in which the shadow is over the vertex.