Antinuclear

Google allows households to calculate solar system savings, but Australia beats them to it, Business Spectator TRISTAN EDIS , 18 Aug 15, Google has unveiled a software tool that assists home owners to estimate how much they could save on their energy bill from placing solar panels on their available roof space. Yet Australia’s Photovoltaic Institute had already developed a similar tool some time ago.

The Google tool, known as Project Sunroof, uses high resolution aerial maps to estimate the suitable roof space of a building that could host solar panels, and then calculates the amount of energy these panels would produce and associated power bill savings. It does this taking into account the amount of solar radiation for that geographic location and then adjusts for factors such as roof orientation and shade from nearby buildings and trees. At present the tool is only available for the US locations of the San Francisco Bay Area, Fresno in central California and the North-east coast city of Boston.

However the Australian Photovoltaic Institute has designed almost precisely the same tool, releasing it several months ago.  Called the Live Solar Potential Tool, it is a free to use tool that operates in a similar manner to Google Earth, allowing anyone to zoom in on a specific household and then estimate how much energy a given area of the rooftop would be likely to generate with solar panels……..http://www.businessspectator.com.au/news/2015/8/18/solar-energy/google-allows-households-calculate-solar-system-savings-australia-beats