Google wants to expand rooftop solar by measuring your house from space

Basically, Google’s service will be ready to answer some of your most pressing questions related to installing solar panels on your roof.

The team has created an algorithm that can help you figure out how much solar energy you can produce at your specific location, what the costs would look like, how much money you could save, and whom you should contact to start the installation process.

Project Sunroof projects that BetaBoston’s office on Morrissey Boulevard in Boston has 1,500 hours of usable sunlight a year.

Sadly, this now only works in the San Francisco Bay Area, Fresno (which Google helpfully tells us is in central California) and Boston (a major city on the East Coast, as far as we are aware).

There’s never been a better time to invest in a solar power system for your home, with federal and local subsidies making solar more affordable than ever. Google’s Project Sunroof is trying to change that.

Although there have been basic calculators available for some time now that convert roof area into potential solar energy production, they’re fairly rudimentary.

“I learned that many people are in favor of going solar themselves personally but they wrongly believe it’s very expensive”, Elkin said in an interview Monday. A video explaining the cool Google Maps tech behind it follows below – more details about the project are available on Google’s special site for it at this link.

For users living in the handful of test regions at the moment, homeowners just enter their addresses and Sunroof will respond with the estimate based on a variety of factors, including (but not limited to) local weather patterns, tree shade, and average electric bills.