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Google's Project Sunroof Tells You How Well Solar Would Work On Your Roof
An anonymous reader writes: Google's Project Sunroof aims to make the task of installing solar panels easier by providing financial advice and stats on what solar energy could do for you. The project is only available in San Francisco, Boston, and Fresno for now. Techcrunch reports: "To get started, you simply plug in your address and some data about your monthly electricity bill, and the tool will tell you what the recommended solar installation size is and how much it would cost to buy or lease the hardware. In case you want to go ahead with a solar install, the tool also lets you reach out to local solar providers. Google says these listings are sponsored, so chances are it'll get a bit of a kickback when it generates a sales lead for these companies."
Darn it: "Sorry, Project Sunroof hasn't reached this address yet."
Can't say much about it then.
I don't read AC A human right
Hot. We're looking at putting in a 20MegaWatt solar array on our farm. This would be a cool tool.
Annual insolation, even after considering weather, counts as a well-documented stat across the entire US. Why would they limit this to just a few key cities?
Google says these listings are sponsored, so chances are it'll get a bit of a kickback when it generates a sales lead for these companies.
Oh, riiight! "We don't have any partners outside those cities yet, so the rest of you can go fuck yourselves". Got it.
Have gnu, will travel.
There is already a the PVWatts calculator at on NREL's website. You input your location, the type and placement of the solar panels and it tells you how much power to expect based on local weather measurements. Since these are the people gathering the data, I can't imagine google's project does anything than access this same database.
http://pvwatts.nrel.gov/
Sad that these summaries come right after they are displayed by Ars or TechCrunch. I want the scoop before its out to the sheeple.
Every time I go in there I get that dude coming up to me "sir, do you own a home, can I tell you about how Solar will blah blah blah"
Lemme alone, fools. I will burn hydrocarbons till the day I die. (just joking here)
sigs are for losers (except to point out that sigs are for losers)
I live in Arizona, which is one of the very best places to do solar since it is very sunny, very hot, and a significant portion of your electrical use is for cooling so the panels generate the most when you need it the most AND shade your roof. However they aren't available in this area. Really? I'd the the desert of the southwest would be the first place since, well, that is THE place for solar. I mean ya solar can be used and have some benefit anywhere in the world but the hot, sunny, dry places are where it really works well.
It will cost, give or take, about $40K to install a 10 kilowatt system on my home.
Returning the 30% federal tax credit back to me puts me at a cost of $28K.
Based on my location in Texas and my current utility rate (total cost) and that I have net-metering, I'll save about $1,400 a year in electricity with such a system.
That puts me at an even 20 year payback period. Now, in fairness, electric rates are not likely to stay the same, adding solar does add something to my home's value, so there is that.
Lets say that electric rates will rise with the rate of inflation, which the government currently says is nearly zero, but will probably rise, then add something to the value of my home, and you get about a 12 year payback period, if you use numbers that favor solar and 17 years if you don't.
What those numbers DON'T take into account is the loss of net-metering, which is a real risk. If too many people go to solar, it will have to go away. If everyone installed solar on their roof and ended up with no electric bill, the power companies would go out of business. Clearly they would actually go out of business long before then, maybe at 20%. You can talk about batteries all you want, but the reality is they likely will get lawmakers to remove net-metering before then.
Regardless, it is a terrible investment, it makes no sense whatsoever from a financial point of view, at least for me. If you pay more than I do for power, then it might make sense for you. I have family in Australia who recently installed solar because they pay more than 25 cents per kWh, so the numbers are quite different there.
That's like making a fruit salad with watermelon, cantaloupe, and rambutan.
I used the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's System Advisor Model (SAM) tool when I designed my 16kWdc rooftop array. You can download SAM from the NREL site. They also have a web-based tool called PVWatts that is far less detailed, but is definitely easy to use and produces a very reliable estimate if you are thinking about a PV array.
For what it is worth, rooftop solar is facing stiff opposition from utility companies and energy producers because it directly affects their bottom line. Changes in net metering regulations that favor the existing energy production infrastructure over locally produced alternative energy are becoming more common as the fossil fuel industry fights to retain the status quo. Without going on a rant about it, I watched my seven year ROI on a $42k project evaporate because of changes to Arizona's net metering regulations put in place this year by the bought-and-paid-for-by-Koch Industries Arizona Corporation Commission.
Perl Programmer for hire
It's still a pretty serious system if he's looking at 20kW. For my house I'd be looking at a 4-6 kW solution, covering the entire south facing side of my roof, and my roof is about as ideal for solar as it gets, shape wise.
20kW would require a much larger house, and probably a barn or two as well.
I don't read AC A human right
The only way that this would be accurate is if it looked at the satellite imagery throughout the day and all year long because shadows.
http://www.sunrun.com/
Interesting. Here in Luxembourg city (over in ol' Europe), the land register actually also has data on the constructions, and has now for a short while added a feature on their online maps displaying whether it would be worthwhile to install PV on the rooftops - they go as far as displaying which parts of the roof would be of most interest in that context. Of course, they can only give general guidelines, to be confirmed by an expert.
With my own house being at the north end of a row, only my back/front roof parts would be of medium utility, so it wouldn't be worth the investment overall.
Why can't I sell my excess energy on the power grid? When installing solar, I have to drain it into that same grid without payment.
You signed your post without saying anything? I guess you really are a useless tool.
A significant question to consider is one's assumed interest rate.
When you buy energy from a utility, there is, very importantly, no up-front cost: You simply pay as you go for the energy consumed.
Owning solar equipment on my own roof involves the substantial up-front cost of solar hardware and its installation. Though the energy thrown off by new investment is "free" (ignoring maintenance), the money I've invested in solar equipment could have been earning a return elsewhere, measured by the assumed interest rate.