First, watch the video above (you can click on CC for closed captions)

This article was originally published on Forbes website and it speaks about the project presented on the video above.

First, watch the video. then read about this amazing project.

⚠️ If you click on the words in blue & dotted, you are able to see their meaning.

Do people use solar panels in your country? ⬇️

ID-10095330

Google’s ‘Project Sunroof’ Aims To Put Solar Panels On Top Of Everything

When it comes to  figuring out if your roof  is an ideal and economical spot for installing solar panels, Google doesn’t think that a Google search is very effective anymore. Instead, one of the company’s engineers, Carl Elkin, created a tool using Google Earth high-resolution aerial photos and mapping data  to determine if putting panels on your roof makes sense.

Google and Elkin announced Project Sunroof in a blog post:

“As a volunteer with the Boston-based solar program Solarize Massachusetts and a solar homeowner myself, I’ve always been surprised at how many people I encounter who think that “my roof isn’t sunny enough for solar,” or “solar is just too expensive.” Certainly many of them are  missing out on a chance to save money and be green.”

By entering your address (provided   you live in one of the project pilot cities of Boston, Fresno or the San Francisco Bay Area) in the Project Sunroof website, it uses available weather data and aerial imagery to figure out how much sunlight hits your roof, factoring in things like orientation, shade from trees and buildings and weather patterns. These numbers are then crunched to figure out your building’s solar generating potential and how much panels could save on power bills.

To try it out  , I entered an address from my old neighborhood in the Bay Area back in the day where I lived in an area on the ocean side of the San Francisco peninsula that was often under a layer of persistent fog   as I remember it. According to  Project Sunroof, however, a relatively small roof in the neighborhood receives over 5 hours per day of sunlight on average, and covering it with panels could result in an estimated $13,000 in energy savings over the course of a 20-year lease. Not too shabby .

Conveniently, of course, the Project Sunroof site also can direct you to local solar providers ready to make that install happen.

Google says it hopes to expand the project to other areas and improve the tool in coming months, to eventually include the entire United States and perhaps the whole world.

news source: Forbes

 

This is some analysis of sunlight on one address in the San Fransisco Bay Area

Google SunRoof Project detail

In order to see a live analysis of sunlight and amount of money saved, click here

 

banner_question time

(1) What is your assessment / evaluation of this news? Do you think it is a groundbreaking  piece of news?

 (2) Have you ever considered using solar panels on top of your house or apartment building?

(3) What’s the future of energy sources? Green energy sources or coal-based ones?

📝 types of energy: 

  • renewable:
    When the energy source used is freely regenerated in a short period and there are practically limitless reserves:

    • solar
    • wind (atmospheric flows)
    • geothermal
    • tidal (from the ocean)
    • waterfall (hydraulic flows)
    • plant: paper, wood
    • animal: wax, grease, pack animals and sources of mechanical energy
  • nonrenewable:
    They are coming from energy limited sources on Earth in quantity and, therefore, are exhaustible. The non-renewable energy sources include, non-exclusively:

    • fossil source: petroleum, natural gas, coal
    • original mineral/chemical: uranium, shale gas

source: Wikipedia

 

Solar Panels → Image courtesy of Serge Bertasius at FreeDigitalPhotos.net