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."

Comments

Not available yet...

[Firethorn]

Darn it: "Sorry, Project Sunroof hasn't reached this address yet."

Can't say much about it then.

Re:Not available yet...

[thinkwaitfast]

Try pvwatts. It's very accurate in my experience.

http://pvwatts.nrel.gov/

Strange limitations

[pla]

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.

Re:Strange limitations

[bondsbw]

If you aren't willing to pay for alternative energy, then don't be surprised when you don't get it. Google helps advance that cause and all you can do is complain that they are a business.

Might as well ...

[PPH]

... just contact a local system installer. The insolation data for a particular region is already known and publicly available. What will affect your particular system are things like local shading, roof pitch and orientation and cost of installation as affected by your house and lot particulars. Local installers will also be familiar with your utilities solar programs.

Real numbers

[FlyHelicopters]

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.