Project Sunroof | Interview with Joel Conkling

The rise of solar energy use, especially by homes and businesses with panels on their roofs, is gradually transforming the electricity industry. But solar installers in the United States face a challenge in finding new customers at reasonable customer acquisition costs in order to fuel their growth. And many potential customers are confused about how solar power works, creating a barrier to its adoption.

Last year, Google introduced Project Sunroof to enable tens of millions of potential solar customers from across the U.S. to evaluate if their home is suitable for solar and how much they could save on electricity.

Project Sunroof works by using high-resolution aerial imagery from Google Earth to help calculate a roof’s solar energy potential. Users simply need to enter their address, and in roughly one second the technology analyzes factors such as shade, roof orientation and local weather patterns to calculate how many hours of sunlight hit that roof in a typical year. All of this information is combined to create an estimate for how much power a user could produce, and estimated savings with solar. For users looking to take the next steps in going solar, Project Sunroof makes it easy by enabling users to connect and share their information with local providers they select.

In this short video, we speak with Joel Conkling, Principal Energy and Sustainability at Google.

Learn more about Project Sunroof here: unfccc.int/secretariat/momentum_for_change/items/9939.php