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Show HN: Helios – what plug-in solar could generate for any address in Britain

helios.southlondonscientific.com

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Show HN: Helios – what plug-in solar could generate for any address in Britain

#1

Post by ruaraidh »

Plug-in solar panels (no electrician needed) have just become legal in the UK and will go on sale soon. Helios estimates how much electricity a typical installation could generate at a given address and what that's worth against your tariff.

It uses UK government LIDAR data to reflect the actual skyline, so it knows whether there's a building or a hill blocking the sun.

Caveats: - Outside LIDAR coverage (most of Scotland and Wales) it falls back to a synthetic horizon (less accurate). - Trees and recent developments (post-2022 or so) may not be in the data, and some address placements could be off (geocoding via OSM).

Feedback on the shading model especially welcome.

Show HN: Helios – what plug-in solar could generate for any address in Britain
helios.southlondonscientific.com

Re: Show HN: Helios – what plug-in solar could generate for any address in Britain

#5

Post by kilroy123 »

redfloatplane wrote: post #4

Huh, TIL about the National LIDAR Programme: https://www.data.gov.uk/dataset/f0db0249-f17b-4036-9e65-3091... Very interesting stuff and quite a large undertaking! I'm often impressed by the quality of the UK's open data.

I noticed this as well! Very interesting.

Re: Show HN: Helios – what plug-in solar could generate for any address in Britain

#6

Post by ltrg »

Really cool stuff. Nitpick: it failed to grab an OSM ID for my house and fell back to postcode centroid, but then still reported LIDAR-derived shading at quite high precision.

I'm wondering if it should fall back to a more general shading approach when no OSM building footprint is available, to avoid false precision? My street has a gap in the houses on the other side from mine, so picking the right location matters for the calculation.

You could also try Inspire Index polygons instead of OSM? These correspond to actual lease/freehold boundaries.

Re: Show HN: Helios – what plug-in solar could generate for any address in Britain

#7

Post by ruaraidh »

ltrg wrote: post #6

Really cool stuff. Nitpick: it failed to grab an OSM ID for my house and fell back to postcode centroid, but then still reported LIDAR-derived shading at quite high precision. I'm wondering if it should fall back to a more general shading approach when no OSM building footprint is available, to avoid false precision? My street has a gap in the houses on the other side from mine, so picking the right location matters…

Thanks - I didn't know about Inspire Index, I'll check it out. I tend to agree about false precision. My first instinct was to use the synthetic horizon for addresses in that group, but I think that's over positive. A range might be better (if a bit more complex)?

Re: Show HN: Helios – what plug-in solar could generate for any address in Britain

#9

Post by ruaraidh »

realty_geek wrote: post #8

Nice. I'm working on a project called homestocompare to help people house-hunting in the UK. Would be nice to add this as an extra data point when comparing. Are you open to collaborating at all?

Absolutely! I have some other datasets that might be useful too (e.g. air quality). Drop me a line: ruaraidh[at]southlondonscientific.com :)

Re: Show HN: Helios – what plug-in solar could generate for any address in Britain

#10

Post by simonjgreen »

realty_geek wrote: post #8

Nice. I'm working on a project called homestocompare to help people house-hunting in the UK. Would be nice to add this as an extra data point when comparing. Are you open to collaborating at all?

Let me know if you’d like access to alt net availability data
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