Google's "Project Sunroof" that tells us "whether solar panels should be installed at home" in the world is expanding to the world

By installing a solar panel on the roof, the question "Do not lose in the end, will profits remain?" Is a question that people who are interested in photovoltaic power will definitely embrace them. The answer to such a question is Google 's judgment on the profitability of solar panel installation from satellite data etc.Project Sunroof"is. This project, which began targeting the US in 2015, is gradually expanding to countries around the world.

Project Sunroof
https://www.google.com/get/sunroof

A solar panel that receives electricity from receiving sunlight can produce electricity by "renewable energy" which is not fossil fuel or nuclear power, and it also makes it possible to save household electricity bills. Nonetheless, it will cost a lot of money to install panels and peripherals, so it is extremely important to consider the introduction of photovoltaic power to see if there is a merit to exceed the initial cost in the long term It becomes a judgment material.

How much power a solar panel can produce depends greatly on the location of the installation site in addition to the performance of the panel itself. Even if you set up a panel on the roof of your home, if you choose the north slope (in the case of the Northern Hemisphere) where the sun's light hardly hits in the daytime and the place where the sunlight is obstructed by a building with high height, It is impossible to get enough power to put out.

Project Sunroof, which Google began offering in 2015Is a service that judges how much the roof of each house is suitable for solar power generation. On the site, you can see a map showing the suitability of each roof with a purple to white gradation like the image below. Purple indicates a sunny place, closer to white means more sunny.


In this gradation, the machine learning algorithm judges the direction and angle of each roof from sunshine data and weather data for each area, geographical factors, and data of Google Earth and Google Maps, and it will start to aptitude for solar power generation Things drawn by things. Based on that data, we calculate "sunshine hours of one year" and "the area of ​​the roof that is suitable for installing solar panels", and the amount of profits remaining in hand when operated for 20 years.


The superiority of this judgment algorithm lies in being able to judge individual situation in detail. In the following image, it is shown that one of the three south-facing roofs is not suitable for photovoltaic generation so much, but this is indicated by the arrow It is the result of judging that the algorithm recognizing that the tree is standing "judge that the sunshine time will be short".


Project Sunroof is a software company in 2017TetraederWe also began offering services to Germany under cooperation with. In late May 2018, we started to provide Project Sunroof service in cooperation with British electric company "E.ON".

Google launches solar power service in UK - BBC News
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-44303881

E. ON Solar Energy | Solar PV Power for your Home | E.ON
https://www.eon-solar.co.uk/

It is like this when you show the situation around the Kensington Palace. The forest-like part of the image on the left, the garden of the palace is in a state where the roof does not exist spectacularly ... ...


However, even though the point suitable for poppets and solar power generation is still displayed in the garden, the precision of the algorithm can be felt.


There were companies that provided similar judgment services so far, but in both cases it was necessary to provide the shape data of the roof and the house. On the other hand, services such as Project Sunroof that can immediately give an outline can be judged more easily, and in addition, the effect of lowering the barriers that the person who has been struggling to date has lowered It is expected.

Jonathan Marshall, the lead analyst of British NPO "Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU)" on energy and the environment, explained about the merits of Project Sunroof's easy calculation results, "The process proceeds faster By doing so, the probability that you will seriously make people who came to see with "half a degree of passion" will increase. "

A summary of Project Sunroof can also be seen in the following movie.

Introducing Project Sunroof - YouTube