Solar PV - Is Project Sunroof a PVGIS Contender?
Watching the BBC news at some point yesterday was interesting as one of the items mentioned that Google have launched an on-line tool to assist homeowners to easily assess the potential of becoming greener by installing solar panels - mental note made, so what's it all about and should this really be of interest to homeowners or is it another example of an attempt to monetise the provision of data, so obviously deserving a quick look at some time.
Okay, so this morning the priority wasn't to investigate or review anything, but this afternoon I had a little time on my hands so sat down with a mug of coffee and had a look, starting with the related BBC news website article 'Google launches solar power service in UK', so what does that really say to us.
Well, quite simply, not much really apart from Google launching tool called 'Project Sunroof' in the USA in 2015, expanding to Germany last year and are now progressively rolling out the service into the UK in partnership with the major energy supplier E.ON and that the system utilises machine learning to assist homeowners to make 'informed decisions' regarding solar panels - surely there must be more than this, so this deserves a little more investigation.
A First Look
A couple of months ago Vriconian assessed the performance of the EU's PVGIS-5 (beta release) solar PV estimation tool comparing it's various datasets against the current official release (PVGIS-4) based on a system located in Meriden, England. Obviously a direct comparison to this exercise in a format represented in the chart (right) would prove interesting, so time to follow the link to the referenced E.ON solar energy site to see what it's all about.
Right then, upon accessing the E.ON site everything looks familiar, a satellite image with a standard location pin and a postcode search box, so after a little checking to find Meriden postcodes are CV7 and a little pan & zoom in an area to the East of Birmingham airport, the pin was dropped on a seemingly suitable south facing rooftop. The page immediately displays a complete address and performs some calculations over the next few seconds, displaying icons suggesting analysis of shading etc before concluding that the property in question has a '21 sqm roof area from 47 sqm of suitable roof space, based on a 3D model of your roof and nearby trees ' - interesting and quite simple so far, so onward to the recommendation - 'To find out how much you can save please start the calculator below '.
At this stage we have three options, obviously to determine a pattern of household energy usage -
How many people live in your home? (including children)
A graphic selection of the headcount which assumes 1=1500kWh/year with 2=2500 / 3=3000 / 4=4000 / 5=5000 / 6=8000, although this does look a suspect considering the energy requirements suggest that the algorithm must already be able to estimate the property size, after all, there system is supposed to use machine learning to assist users make informed decisions.
Or what is your average electricity consumption?
A slider to select annual usage between 1000 & 8000kWh
When do you consume the most electricity?
Options for 'During the day' or 'In the morning & Evenings' to allow for the effect of usage patterns on self consumption of generated energy.
So, in the hope that a detailed energy generation estimate will be provided anyway, a typical low energy user household consisting of 2 people with an annual electricity requirement of 2500kWh and a Morning/Evening pattern is selected, and what do we get? - ' Please enter your contact details so we can send your result by email. ' followed by mandatory detail boxes asking for :-
Do you own your own home, whether that's outright or mortgaged?
Yes / No
Do you live in a flat?
Yes / No
First name*
Last name*
Telephone number*
Email*
- backed up by ' We’d like to send you your solar results and contact you by email, telephone and/or text about a solar quote. Please select this tick box to continue. ' - 'no thanks! - absolutely not what I want, but just what was expected, yes, the monetisation page, time to back out and look elsewhere - I wouldn't provide such details if I hadn't already thoroughly researched the subject & wasn't already sufficiently committed to Solar PV to start looking to receive quotations, so I couldn't recommend going any further to anyone else either.
Looking Elsewhere
So the Google / E.ON system in the UK at first sight seems to be a pure sales lead system as opposed to one created to assist homeowners to make 'informed decisions' and, although they may not be as advanced regarding shading issues, there's already a number of those available already. This leaves an open question concerning the level of information would be available through the system - to get an idea I popped over to the Google 'Project Sunroof' site in the USA where, although UK location data isn't available, there's a more detailed description and at least there's be some synergy.
Okay, there's an address & roof selection looks remarkably similar to that seen earlier which, when completed, provide an estimate of the roof area in square feet, an assessment of the annual sunlight hours for the location and an estimate of the value of annual monetary savings based on an assumed annual energy usage and recommended array size which can be fine-tuned by the user to reflect actual household usage by using a slider to vary the average monthly electricity bill between $0 & $500.
Information provided to the user is limited to some basic environmental impact figures (CO2 tonnes, Car Years & Trees) and cost savings, although the accuracy & validity of what is calculated is extremely worrying. In the case of the test made the algorithms employed by the tool suggest that for a given monthly electricity usage of $60, a 2.25kW array covering 159 square feet 'will cover about 100% of your electricity usage' and provide an estimated $7000 of savings over 20 years, which is a little far-fetched unless either the sun never sets within the data model they've built or considerable undisclosed storage capacity is assumed to be available!
Representative costs are provided for various finance options (Buy, Lease, Loan) based on an estimated installation cost , which in the case of the 2.25kWp system recommendation would be a hefty $13,159, which in the UK would result in a serious gulp from anyone already owning a Solar PV system or having a rough idea of average prices!
Looking at this level of cost from a UK fully installed viewpoint (see related sub 4kWp post) raises obvious questions, but that's not for now, it's just sufficient to mention that the page continues with - 'Ready to get started? - Find a solar provider in your area to get more information and begin discussing installation'
Conclusion
Having spent a few minutes looking into what the BBC news item was saying, I'd be very surprised if the offering provided any really useful information to anyone who has conducted even the most basic research into acquiring a solar PV system, far more useful information can easily be gleaned through using the standard free to use PVGIS calculator (see related links) without needing to disclose information for follow-up marketing purposes.
Really surprising are the supporting comments made by a non-profit organisation as reported by the BBC claiming the system "lowers the barriers" to Solar PV uptake. If I was in the market to spend a considerable amount of money on installing PV on my roof, I'm sure that I'd be able to find a tape-measure and a suitable method of using it safely without too many barriers!
Anyway, is Solar Sunroof a PVGIS Contender? - In summary, the reported offering may provide the basis for a future graphical user interface, but there's a long way to go before it can be taken seriously, let alone be a serious contender as a useful resource, so no, it's not anywhere as useful as PVGIS and as long as revenue maximisation is prioritised over a stated public commitment to green energy it's not likely to be either. The basic concept is decent and what exists may eventually morph into something useful, all it would take is a little input from someone who understands the general requirements of the solar PV community as opposed to a sales & marketing tool and things may change quickly, so the service is definitely worth keeping an occasional eye on.
Still Interested? - For further information have a look at the related posts on this site!
Do come back regularly for updates
