Link dead. . Google error. .
Project Sunroof
101–110 of 233 posts
Re: Project Sunroof
#102Link dead. . Google error. .
I'm also getting an error. Strange to see a google page down...
Re: Project Sunroof
#103Re: Project Sunroof
#104Re: Project Sunroof
#105Link dead. . Google error. .
I'm also getting an error. Strange to see a google page down...
See justplay's answer.
Re: Project Sunroof
#106How do they make these maps? Do they have satellite images of different points of (sunny) days and run the analysis that way?
Extrapolation. Use the time on the satellite photo to get the time reference, and thus where the sun is and how much sunlight going at a direction. Use the location and direction of the house get a sense of the facing of the roof. Use color level of the bright and shade sides to estimate the roof pitch incline. Given the roof's area, direction, and pitch, it's not hard to estimate the sun light received.
Far easier, they have 3D models of all the buildings already, as well as weather info. They just need to determine what is roof, and calculate the exposure.
Re: Project Sunroof
#107[deleted]
Re: Project Sunroof
#108Fusion of maps, 3d modeling, electricity & lease rates, solar intensity, installers. Easy to use. This feels like something new and powerful. For society: I wonder if it is safe for so much power to be concentrated in one organization. As a technical accomplishment: I'm impressed.
But Google doesn't have power over electricity and lease rates or lists of installers -- they're just using publicly available data.
There are other sources for maps data, and many people have 3d modeling software.
So I'm not sure how this is "so much power" concentrated in one organization.
Re: Project Sunroof
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
The 3-4c wholesale rate is for base power (giant infrastructure generators, hydroelectric dams and such things), but solar knocks the top off the mid-day demand curve, at which time PG&E is paying much more for "peaker" power generation. But they don't have to pay you the peaker rate, they pay you the baseline rate. Anyway, to my mind, any system in which current comes out of your PV installation at 3 cents and flows…
Something I worry about with solar is once power is psychologically "free" I'll be tempted to set the thermostat down to 65F or whatever, and end up paying full rate when clouds blow by. I think it would be difficult not to increase power use once its free. I'm not talking about explicitly leaving stuff on for fun, but more like "well, power is free, so I guess I can afford a tropical reef tank instead of a plain fis…
Heating your house with electricity is extremely inefficient. 5KW of "excess" electricity won't go very far in heating your house when it's cold outside, and any excess you might have will be less in the winter because of your latitude.
I'm not saying you can't do it, but even with today's cheap solar panels it's not likely to be a good value proposition.
Re: Project Sunroof
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
It smells of the anti-hybrid astroturfing from a decade or so ago where numerous Ford and GM employees would be glad to tell you on social media that if you get into a car accident in a hybrid, emergency services will leave you to bleed out and die because its a hybrid so you should have bought a SUV or truck like a RealAmerican(tm). My father in law did the volunteer fire dept thing in his rural area and its very de…
Everything above is correct. (I'm a volunteer firefighter.) Firefighters nowadays are trained to deal with the high-voltage DC that's present in hybrid and electric cars. It may take a little longer to extricate a victim, but it won't stop us. As for houses, we won't bother entering a burning residence at all unless we're likely to find a person still alive, or the nature of the fire is such that the danger to us --…
Thanks for the reply, and the job you do.