8 ms·
Project Sunroof
- Apocryphon 4y agoTo be safe is it better to use a neighbor's address?
- LeoPanthera 4y agoThat would be completely pointless, since you will get results for your neighbor.
- Apocryphon 4y agoWhat if it’s in an area with very similar buildings
- sithadmin 4y ago>Enter a U.S. or Puerto Rico address Enters address in top 50 (population) US county "Project Sunroof hasn't reached that address" ...well, alright then.
- saalweachter 4y agoWas your house built in the last, what, 7-8 years? (I'm curious if the data hasn't been refreshed since the site launched.)
- sithadmin 4y agoMy house was built 71 years ago.
- tppiotrowski 4y agoMy hunch is that they require LiDAR data for the estimate and LiDAR data is currently collected one municipality at a time and stored in many different places. It's a data fragmentation problem. In comparison, ground elevation data (omitting buildings and trees) can be collected using radar from orbit. That's why we have consistent and widely available elevation data like SRTM for the entire planet.
- addaon 4y agoThere's pretty good high-res LiDAR data available for my location (84741), but no availability of Project Sunroof. So either they're not aggregating all available public data (certainly possible), or something else is holding them back.
- Animats 4y agoExpect this project to be cancelled. Google is in layoff mode.
- DiabloD3 4y agoI don't know why this guy is being downvoted. I thought this already was canceled, as (almost?) all 20% time projects at Google have been killed. Last time I heard about this being relevant was, 2015? ish?
- jsnell 4y agoBecause it is a repetitive, low-value comment which gets spammed to basically every thread that's even tangential to Google.
- DiabloD3 4y agoSort of? It's still a valid comment as long as it continues to be true. Google needs to clean house at the top, and go back to engineering-first teams, not engineering-never.
- jsnell 4y agoA lot of things can be true, and still not be worth posting thousands of times per year on HN. Because do you see what's happened here? Whatever interesting discussion there might have been to be had on this project has now been smothered by the top-voted comment being just a tired repetition of the same "Google kills products, hehe, hehe" echo chamber. (I don't know if there really is that much discussion to be had on the actual topic of the post, but it should at least get a chance!)
- simondotau 4y agoI tend to prefer an occasional, short, low effort comment more than the long-winded, hall monitor style commentary on hacker news guidelines which so often follows.
- steveBK123 4y agoCool site, but its been around for years.. not seeing anything new on it today?
- kaycebasques 4y agoI submitted the post. I am a Googler but am not aware of any news about this project. Just thought it was cool and would share it in case it's useful for anyone. And correct, it has been around for years (2016 to be exact): https://sustainability.google/progress/projects/project-sunroof/ https://sustainability.google/progress/projects/project-sunr...
- coder543 4y agoUnfortunately, the data has not been updated in years either. If you're a Googler and you find this project interesting, maybe you can find the right people internally to work with to revitalize this project. It's a really cool concept, just so far out of date that it isn't very useful any more.
- n00bskoolbus 4y agoHad this in my city for a time. Was a partnership between some tech company and the big local energy provider. Got axed after two years and seems like the tech company didn't have any rights to the data since it's no longer accessible. Cool idea but miss my local data :( Found the company, they still partner with a small amount of cities: https://myheat.ca/ https://myheat.ca/
- mlsu 4y agoPutting solar panels on roofs may have made sense when PV was expensive and the component cost was a big multiple. But now? Far better to just stick a bunch of them in the desert where they can be inexpensively installed and maintained -- pass the savings along to consumers. This saves a lot of pain when people "invest" a bunch of money in labor intensive installations, only to figure out the difference between wholesale and consumer rates when they cannot sell power back to the grid at $.20/kWh. At a macro scale, there is no reason to incentivize residential solar, other than "feels."
- toomuchtodo 4y agoPayback period in most parts of the US is ~10 years for residential rooftop solar. The equipment will last at least 25-30 years, most likely longer at a lower capacity rating (panels degrade ~0.5-1%/year). It also prevents your utility from holding you hostage economically, because they'll just keep raising rates at the max rate the PUC allows and to max their equity return permitted. I'm unsure why you think savings would be passed to ratepayers versus kept as profit by investor owned utilities? Might happen with coops and non profit utilities. Utility scale solar absolutely helps drive out fossil generation at the macro, but residential rooftop solar is a hedge against utility monopolistic practices. https://www.utilitydive.com/news/electricity-prices-inflation-consumer-price-index/640656/ https://www.utilitydive.com/news/electricity-prices-inflatio... https://www.utilitydive.com/news/retail-electricity-prices-continue-rapid-rise-utility-debt-growing/631496/ https://www.utilitydive.com/news/retail-electricity-prices-c... https://www.wptv.com/money/consumer/florida-residents-struggling-to-pay-rising-electric-bills https://www.wptv.com/money/consumer/florida-residents-strugg...
- jeffbee 4y agoThis tool, while cool, is an application of large-scale image processing and won't stand scrutiny over the estimates for individual buildings. Just as an example, it features Oklahoma City, but their model does not seem to include the mean time between being destroyed by hail or tornados. This would be a somewhat relevant point for OKC.
- ShakataGaNai 4y agoThis is a cool project, but it hasn't been updated in YEARS. I think it was put on lifesupport in 2017. https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/googles-project-sunroof-puts-an-end-to-lead-sales https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/googles-project...
- jahewson 4y agoLess of a moonshot and more of a sunshot.
- jedc 4y agoThat article is only about the lead-generation part of Project Sunroof being shut down. Which makes a ton of sense - it was likely not generating much revenue, but managing a program like that can suck up a ton of time in managing those relationships. It's just easier to kill it and let everyone compete in search results instead. You're correct in that the design hasn't been updated in years, but... so? From poking around in my city, everything still seems to work the same. (Though I wonder if the estimates are now out of date...)
- coder543 4y ago> You're correct in that the design hasn't been updated in years, but... so? I checked a house that was built about 4 years ago in a major metro area, and Project Sunroof just showed an empty field and "sorry, we haven't reached that address yet". I'm fairly sure nothing about this site is being updated. That also means that any structural changes to houses (including additions, remodeling of the roof, or just complete bulldoze-and-rebuild) or the surrounding property (tree growth, trees being cut down, etc) are not reflected in the estimates. > Though I wonder if the estimates are now out of date By all appearances, they are. Massively. The older this data gets, the less useful it becomes. It's not really a "so what?" situation if the data isn't being kept up to date.
- jedc 4y agoAh, interesting. So it sounds like they haven't updated the data in ages, either. What I always loved about this site is that Google made it SUPER-easy to visualize just how good (or not) any given roof was for solar. At the time it launched, you had to get deep into the sales process with a solar vendor to get that kind of data/understanding. I just tried a couple of big current-day providers and it looks like that's largely still true. Pick My Solar was the only one who would even try to give an estimate of solar potential without requiring an email address or full-on lead gen. So at least for the people whose homes haven't changed in the past 5 years, some of the core visualizations will still be useful.
- tppiotrowski 4y agoThey say they account for trees when calculating usable roof area but I can't find if they account for building shading in the total hours of sunlight. I've been working on a tangential project [1] for helping people find sunny areas anywhere in the world based on topography and building data and must say that Google trove of LiDAR data is amazing. Does anyone know if it's accessible to developers? [1] https://shademap.app/@47.60502,-122.33437,15z,1675804770099t,0b,0p,1m,qZG93bnRvd24gc2VhdHRsZQ==!47.60502!-122.33437 https://shademap.app/@47.60502,-122.33437,15z,1675804770099t...
- the_arun 4y agoI entered an address. It said $14K savings for 20 years. It takes $15K to install solar roof. So break even is like 20 years - which is half the productive life time. It doesn't motivate me to install Solar panels.
- fastest963 4y agoYou also get 30% back in the form of a tax credit when you purchase solar. So that might mean that the cost is only $10k. I'm also not sure if the Sunroof website is just doing straight math based on today's electricity rates or if it assumes some amount of inflation. If the past predicts the future your rates could be 75%+ higher in 20 years making solar much more lucrative.
- edmundsauto 4y agoI researched historical rates in San Diego (upcoming solar install prework) and prices have increased an average of 5%/year for 10 years running. This felt like a reasonable assumption to me, although to be cautious I used 3%. Rates will change! Energy doesn’t look like it will get cheaper, especially with EV fleet rollouts. Accounting for planned 2 EV purchases at 10k miles/year, the largest system I can build on my roof has something like $150k savings against <$50k cost over 20 years. That gives a lot of room for unexpected issues and feels like a wise bet to take.
- the_arun 4y agoYep, I missed counting energy rate increase. Would the output of solar panel degrade over time? Or is it constant?
- cinntaile 4y agoIt degrades and the amount of degradation is dependent on the PV technology used, but you can find the percentages online. You should still be at 80+% of the original output by the time you retire your panels (20-30yrs later).
- maherbeg 4y agoI don't think the map sources it uses have been updated in a long time. We've had a tree removed from the front of our house 2 years ago that clearly shows up in the map.
- monkeydust 4y agoUse https://solcast.com/ https://solcast.com/ has a free version no credit card, also had it hooked up to homeassisant via their API.
- silisili 4y agoWeird. My address shows a pin on the map, with the house missing. Both neighbors are there, and gives valid estimates for them.
- siva7 4y agoSo that's Googles best bet how to not being killed by Microsofts AI adventure
- eclipxe 4y agoWhat? How do you even make that connection?
- jedberg 4y agoAmusingly they don't appear to be using Google Maps for the data, or if they are, it's an old dataset. They still have the old image of my house before I remodeled, but GMaps has the new roof.
- crispinb 4y agoThis is a local-only service for just a single nation.
- rdl 4y agoLOL/cry that it doesn't let you enter a current electric bill above $500, but does include Puerto Rico and Hawaii adresses.
- nix23 4y agoI wait for a google toilet since years!
- mbgerring 4y agoArcadia’s Arc platform also does this, except it uses actual energy and tariff data, and is used by every major solar installer in America to produce savings estimates accurate enough to write binding contracts against. Check it out: https://www.arcadia.com/arc https://www.arcadia.com/arc
- smm11 4y agoA Google thing started then abandoned? Never heard of such a thing!
- technick 4y agoI hope someone has already written the eulogy for this service. Their numbers also appear to be off. I compared my property to a house that has over 4x the amount of roof space for solar cells and their calculations only showed a 67% increase in the money recouped after 20 years.
- mamurphy 4y agoSee also the independent company energy sage (https://www.energysage.com/ https://www.energysage.com/). They provide what seems like a similar service, and have an active referral network in some markets. I got several quotes through them (though decided to hold off on solar for the time being last fall).
- Waterluvian 4y agoOh cool, my Master’s thesis, reproduced with the resources available to Google. I’m feeling pretty darn validated right now. Floating on clouds. :) Link (there’s a level of bravery in sharing this that I didn’t have before. I’m not a great writer): https://uwspace.uwaterloo.ca/handle/10012/7499 https://uwspace.uwaterloo.ca/handle/10012/7499
- sa46 4y agoLink? Sounds neat.
- Waterluvian 4y agoUpdated parent comment with a link.
- dividefuel 4y agoThis varies quite a bit from the answers my utility company (SMUD) gives. Sunroof says I'll break even in 6 years, my utility estimates 19 years. The biggest difference between their estimates is that Sunroof thinks the panels can cover 99% of my energy costs, so I'll only need to spend $6,000 over the next 20 years on electricity. My power utility estimates that the panels can only cover 80% of my electricity, and I would still spend $26,000 over those 20 years. Just in that comparison, I trust my power utility more (99% coverage seems unrealistic). If they're otherwise correct, 19 years to break even is hardly a compelling case for installing solar. And my roof is well-suited for solar too.
- candiddevmike 4y agoFWIW your utility company probably doesn't want you to get solar, so the answer is most likely in the middle of the two.
- dang 4y agoRelated: Google's Project Sunroof - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25548270 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25548270 - Dec 2020 (2 comments) Project Sunroof - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11941520 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11941520 - June 2016 (4 comments) Google Project Sunroof - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10879312 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10879312 - Jan 2016 (1 comment) Project Sunroof - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10073724 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10073724 - Aug 2015 (223 comments)
- duxup 4y agoThis is way more optimistic about my house compared to other websites that provide other information.
- throwawaaarrgh 4y agoFWIW this project is used by companies involved in solar installations all over the US and is instrumental in furthering the adoption of residential solar. it's kind of a big deal. that said, it's more of a jumping off point for better estimates, and many other companies are around that do this now.
- JaggerFoo 4y agoNot useful for off-grid and no battery options.
- BuckyBeaver 4y ago[dead]