Renewable energy GIS - algorithms for modeling solar insolation / microhydro potential

Are there any algorithms / models out there for determining the
resource potential of solar insolation and/or microhydro
programmatically?

I know there are methods for modeling wind resource energy potentials,
resulting in a raster wind class dataset, produced by TrueWind LLC in
New York; but I imagine those are proprietary.

Is it possible to create one's own wind resource potential raster using
LIDAR data combined with weather station data?

What about solar and microhydro?

With microhydro, I can only think of obtaining a vector hydro layer,
then identifying all parcels intersected by a stream - perhaps querying
some attribute data if any exists in the hydro layer.

How would I measure solar insolation, to see if any land parcel in
particular would be a good site for photovoltaics and/or solar hot
water heating?

Thanks.

Yes,

have a look at GRASS GIS:

http://grass.itc.it/grass61/screenshots/raster.php

Yes,

have a look at GRASS GIS:

http://grass.itc.it/grass61/screenshots/raster.php