DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17042799
title: Digitized geospatial dataset of ground-mounted solar energy panel-rows in the United States

description: Overview

This project provides manually digitized solar panel-rows to fill gaps in and enhance coverage of solar array sub-array design metadata in the US. In doing so, this dataset supports the existing project, The Ground-Mounted Solar Energy in the United States (GM-SEUS) dataset, recently published in Scientific Data. GM-SEUS is a harmonized, open access, and regularly updated geospatial and temporal repository of solar energy arrays and panel-rows). GM-SEUS contains spatiotemporal information and value-added attributes for commercial- (<1 MWDC) and utility-scale (≥1 MWDC) solar photovoltaic (PV) and concentrating solar power (CSP) installations in the United States (US). This data will be included in the GM-SEUS version update (version 1.1).

NOTE: We initially planned to contribute this dataset of manually annotated panel-row geometries to OpenStreetMap (OSM), a critical resource supporting GM-SEUS. Feedback from the OSM community surfaced two conflicts with conventional OSM approaches that we are not planning to resolve within this dataset, as it already meets our research needs. Accordingly, we are not proceeding with the import. We continue to rely on OSM as a critical resource for GM-SEUS and support future, standards-aligned contributions. See our GM-SEUS Solar Panel-Rows OSM Wiki page and the Community Forum Post for more information. 

The entire hand delineated dataset contains 24,182 hand-delineated solar panel-rows (5.29 km²) composing 1,485 arrays previously without panel-row data, spanning the Contiguous United States (CONUS) and digitized by Charlie Bonten. Of these, 23,870 panel-rows did not conflate with existing OpenStreetMap contributions, and composed 1,450 arrays. As of August 29th, 2025, this upload represents a 2.1% increase in panel-row count and a 23.1% increase in the number of arrays with panel-row data in OpenStreetMap. These panel-rows are the intended contribution to OpenStreetMap. We omit the solar farm/array boundaries, since these were generated by an automated process.

File descriptions are as follows: 

GMSEUSv1_1_digAll: All 24,182 newly digitized panel-rows supporting GM-SEUS v1.1 (WGS84), geojson and osm filetypes.

GMSEUSv1_1_digUnique: Non-conflating 23,870 newly digitized panel-rows supporting OpenStreetMap solar panel-row data (WGS84), geojson and osm filetypes.

GMSEUSv1_1_digArraysAll: All 1,485 array shapes created by newly digitized panel-rows supporting GM-SEUS v1.1 and OpenStreetMap solar panel-row conflation comparison (WGS84), geojson and osm filetypes.

GMSEUSv1_1_digUniqueAll: Non-conflating 1,450 array shapes created by newly digitized panel-rows OpenStreetMap solar panel-row conflation comparison (WGS84), geojson and osm filetypes.

DigitizationWorkflow_v1_1.pdf: Workflow documentation for the approach to digitize solar panel-rows using Google Earth Engine and aerial and satellite imagery.

PanelRowDigitizationMetadata.csv: Digitization metadata - explanation, reasoning, and notes on the digitization of panel-rows by array from GM-SEUS v1.0 arrays with missing panel-row data (Source and nativeID are attributes in GM-SEUS files).

README.txt: README file describing GMSEUSv1_1_newlyDigitizedPanels folder contents.

Important links: 



OpenStreetMap MSUwiki home page

OpenStreetMap MSUwiki import home page

GM-SEUS Version 1.0 Data Repository

GitHub Codebase

Peer-reviewed article in Scientific Data (not yet public, but this will be a live link within a week or two)


This is a product of the Michigan State University Hydrogeology Lab.