Google Helps Estimate Solar Power Potential and Cost with its Project Sunroof

On August 17, Google unveiled Project Sunroof, a tool that combines the company’s satellite imagery with some brand-new artificial intelligence (AI) to estimate how much you could save by switching to solar.

Along with pushing Americans to adopt cleaner energy practices, Google eventually will make money from the new product with a commission for each Web referral to a solar energy provider.

Using information from Google Maps, Sunroof shows how much sunlight falls on a roof.

“I learned that many people are in favor of going solar, … but they wrongly believe it’s very expensive”, said Carl Elkin, the software engineer who created the new tool, in an interview Monday. You may be thinking yes, that’s okay but what has Google to do with a Solar Panel?

Because Google supports their employees, encouraging them to spend 20% of their time to work on their own inventions, Elkin started the project over a year ago. He is now working full-time on Project Sunroof from the company’s branch office in Cambridge, Mass. The service is now available for homeowners in Boston, Fresno & San Francisco. And it calculates how much you’ll save depending on whether you opt to finance the solar array with a loan, by leasing, or by purchase.

The project uses Google’s mapping data and computing resources to calculate the best solar plan for each individual. Providing a buyer and/or seller with information regarding the investment of solar panels and potential cost savings presents real value, making Project Sunroof a flawless fit for the real estate industry.

Glancing through suburban Bay Area neighborhoods with the tool displays roofs that appear more solar-friendly than in greater Boston because of New England’s cloudier weather patterns and denser tree canopies.

Earlier this week, Google revealed an easier way for people to find out if a particular roof is suitable for a solar installation – what the company calls Project Sunroof. The results as explained above will be displayed for your home, and along with it, the addresses of the solar power providers in the locality will also be available at the end of the page.

I think many people around the Monterey Bay have concerns that solar won’t work for them because of fog and shade issues, especially those of us lucky enough to be surrounded by big trees.