Project Sunroof, another high-quality bug-free product from Google!
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A site that tells you how much you could save if you install solar panels? Yes please. Let's plug in my address...
Ok, according to Google, I live in Aaron Spelling's mansion. Somehow, via futuristic Tardis technology, my 950 square foot house has over 70,000 square feet of roof to install solar cells on.
I especially like how it has a way to resolve the marker being on the wrong roof, but apparently no way to tell Google, "holy shit where did you get this ridiculous number, the fuck?"
Good job, Google. You've done it again! Give your QA department a raise! If you had one!
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Obviously you just need to put them on top of each other. Stack the solar panels. That's how it works, right?
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@blakeyrat said in Project Sunroof, another high-quality bug-free product from Google!:
I live
Apparently I can cover my roof for a mere $25k, and save $17k overall after 20 years.
Something seems really wrong with these numbers, they're not being given correctly, or someone really wants me to waste $8k for no reason...
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@tsaukpaetra That's net savings, so you make 17000 in profit.
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@captain said in Project Sunroof, another high-quality bug-free product from Google!:
@tsaukpaetra That's net savings, so you make 17000 in profit.
Estimated, and assuming it actually saves money at that rate. Do they factor in that a typical house doesn't use as much electricity during the day (you know, when Solar Panels would be most effective), seeing as everyone is nominally at work or school?
If not, I'd have to factor in for myself a hefty set of battery banks for when we're actually home using the electric stove, our freaking heater of a television, gaming computer, etc. during the night...
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Are subsidies also part of the equation?
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@tsaukpaetra said in Project Sunroof, another high-quality bug-free product from Google!:
@captain said in Project Sunroof, another high-quality bug-free product from Google!:
@tsaukpaetra That's net savings, so you make 17000 in profit.
Estimated, and assuming it actually saves money at that rate. Do they factor in that a typical house doesn't use as much electricity during the day (you know, when Solar Panels would be most effective), seeing as everyone is nominally at work or school?
If not, I'd have to factor in for myself a hefty set of battery banks for when we're actually home using the electric stove, our freaking heater of a television, gaming computer, etc. during the night...
isn't there a way to sell it back into the network? because there should be. because crowd-produced one-of-the-basic-resources-of-today's-society is the best idea ever, right?
GUYS! I GOT A STARTUP! WHO'S IN IT WITH ME? And we'll make it crowd-funded! Crowd everything! Wait, why is there suddenly thousands of people trampling me to death?!
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Guess us Brits will have to wait to see just how buggy this is.
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@blakeyrat said in Project Sunroof, another high-quality bug-free product from Google!:
Ok, according to Google, I live in Aaron Spelling's mansion. Somehow, via futuristic Tardis technology, my 950 square foot house has over 70,000 square feet of roof to install solar cells on.
It actually says you have 70,473 square feet of roof and nearby trees that you can install solar panels on. (Though I was always under the impression that much of a tree’s surface already consists of solar panels.)
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@gurth said in Project Sunroof, another high-quality bug-free product from Google!:
and nearby trees
Is that a standard thing in installing solar panels? I've never heard of fitting them to trees.
The wires mist need a load of slack for the branches to grow and the trees to sway, and what happens if you need to cut down branches or entire trees because they're interfering with power lines or whatever?
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@jaloopa said in Project Sunroof, another high-quality bug-free product from Google!:
@gurth said in Project Sunroof, another high-quality bug-free product from Google!:
and nearby trees
Is that a standard thing in installing solar panels? I've never heard of fitting them to trees.
Neither have I — that’s why I mentioned it, to point out what I saw as a silly thing to include in the calculation.
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@blakeyrat said in Project Sunroof, another high-quality bug-free product from Google!:
@tsaukpaetra said in Project Sunroof, another high-quality bug-free product from Google!:
Hang on, so @Tsaukpaetra has about 70x less surface available than @blakeyrat, with about twice as much sun, so that's roughly a factor 35 between the two (yeah, it's probably not how it works, but it's just a rough idea), and he will make 10x more money at the end? At that rate, I'm guessing that a house with 0 panels will make infinite savings, according to Google...
Fake edit: OK, it's probably the cost of the panels themselves that causes the difference, 1000 hours of sunlight must be just above what's needed to get even (in their computations), so the huge area doesn't really matter...
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@gurth said in Project Sunroof, another high-quality bug-free product from Google!:
@jaloopa said in Project Sunroof, another high-quality bug-free product from Google!:
@gurth said in Project Sunroof, another high-quality bug-free product from Google!:
and nearby trees
Is that a standard thing in installing solar panels? I've never heard of fitting them to trees.
Neither have I — that’s why I mentioned it, to point out what I saw as a silly thing to include in the calculation.
Not so silly if you're factoring loss of sunlight when they inevitably install it in a shady areola.
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@tsaukpaetra said in Project Sunroof, another high-quality bug-free product from Google!:
when they inevitably install it in a shady areola
Are you thinking about @Perverted_Vixen again?
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@tsaukpaetra said in Project Sunroof, another high-quality bug-free product from Google!:
Not so silly if you're factoring loss of sunlight when they inevitably install it in a shady areola.
Paging @Perverted_Vixen ???
(edit: 'd!)
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@raceprouk said in Project Sunroof, another high-quality bug-free product from Google!:
@tsaukpaetra said in Project Sunroof, another high-quality bug-free product from Google!:
when they inevitably install it in a shady areola
Are you thinking about @Perverted_Vixen again?
It's almost two am and I don't know why I'm on WTDWTF.
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@jaloopa said in Project Sunroof, another high-quality bug-free product from Google!:
Is that a standard thing in installing solar panels? I've never heard of fitting them to trees.
No, but trees can cast shadows on a roof, making the roof unsuitable for panels.
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@tsaukpaetra said in Project Sunroof, another high-quality bug-free product from Google!:
Apparently I can cover my roof for a mere $25k, and save $17k overall after 20 years.
Something seems really wrong with these numbers, they're not being given correctly, or someone really wants me to waste $8k for no reason...Well I don't want to defend Google too much because everything they make is broken and stupid, but it does say net savings right there in the screenshot.
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@raceprouk said in Project Sunroof, another high-quality bug-free product from Google!:
Guess us Brits will have to wait to see just how buggy this is.
There is no sun in Britain.
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@raceprouk said in Project Sunroof, another high-quality bug-free product from Google!:
@tsaukpaetra said in Project Sunroof, another high-quality bug-free product from Google!:
when they inevitably install it in a shady areola
Are you thinking about @Perverted_Vixen again?
When are we not?
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@gurth said in Project Sunroof, another high-quality bug-free product from Google!:
It actually says you have 70,473 square feet of roof and nearby trees that you can install solar panels on. (Though I was always under the impression that much of a tree’s surface already consists of solar panels.)
Ok I'm changing my mind, I think Google, dumb as they are, are smarter than you guys.
You can't put solar panels underneath treees, at least the evergreen trees we have in this area, as they'd constantly get covered in crap and need to be cleaned off. Or more likely, nobody would bother cleaning them off and they'd be useless.
That's what Google's 3D modeling is supposed to be accounting for.
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@remi said in Project Sunroof, another high-quality bug-free product from Google!:
@blakeyrat said in Project Sunroof, another high-quality bug-free product from Google!:
@tsaukpaetra said in Project Sunroof, another high-quality bug-free product from Google!:
Hang on, so @Tsaukpaetra has about 70x less surface available than @blakeyrat, with about twice as much sun, so that's roughly a factor 35 between the two (yeah, it's probably not how it works, but it's just a rough idea), and he will make 10x more money at the end? At that rate, I'm guessing that a house with 0 panels will make infinite savings, according to Google...
Fake edit: OK, it's probably the cost of the panels themselves that causes the difference, 1000 hours of sunlight must be just above what's needed to get even (in their computations), so the huge area doesn't really matter...
I expect there's also difference in subsidies between states, as well as different expected usage patterns. If you typically have the AC running all day, you have more daytime usage which makes solar panels more cost-effective because you're using the power rather than selling it to the network at a lower rate.
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@blakeyrat said in Project Sunroof, another high-quality bug-free product from Google!:
@gurth said in Project Sunroof, another high-quality bug-free product from Google!:
It actually says you have 70,473 square feet of roof and nearby trees that you can install solar panels on. (Though I was always under the impression that much of a tree’s surface already consists of solar panels.)
Ok I'm changing my mind, I think Google, dumb as they are, are smarter than you guys.
You can't put solar panels underneath treees, at least the evergreen trees we have in this area, as they'd constantly get covered in crap and need to be cleaned off. Or more likely, nobody would bother cleaning them off and they'd be useless.
That's what Google's 3D modeling is supposed to be accounting for.
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@tsaukpaetra said in Project Sunroof, another high-quality bug-free product from Google!:
I don't know why I'm on WTDWTF.
Don't worry I never do
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@blakeyrat said in Project Sunroof, another high-quality bug-free product from Google!:
You can't put solar panels underneath treees, at least the evergreen trees we have in this area, as they'd constantly get covered in crap and need to be cleaned off.
I think you 'ed, but for a semi-serious comment on that, I think you actually mean:
You can't put solar panels underneath treees, at least the evergreen trees we have in this area, as they'd constantly
get covered in crap and need to be cleaned offbe in the shade.
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@ben_lubar said in Project Sunroof, another high-quality bug-free product from Google!:
Obviously you just need to put them on top of each other. Stack the solar panels. That's how it works, right?
You're obviously forgetting about walls!
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@remi said in Project Sunroof, another high-quality bug-free product from Google!:
as they'd constantly get covered in crap and need to be cleaned offbe in the shade.
Right; because they'd be covered in crap. Not even the biggest tree would put stuff underneath it in the shade 24/7/365. (Although I'm sure there's some cut-off where it's not economic to use the space under trees even if you did clean the crap off, which you wouldn't because people are lazy.)
And yeah whooshy whoosh whoosh look at the stupid jerk who doesn't get jokes! Ha ha point and laugh! But three posts before there's a fucking guy in here who doesn't know what the term "net profit" means so that kind of calibrates my "are you a moron or joking?" needle.
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@jaloopa said in Project Sunroof, another high-quality bug-free product from Google!:
Is that a standard thing in installing solar panels? I've never heard of fitting them to trees.
https://www.revolvesolar.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Worlds-Tallest-Solar-Tree.jpg
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@dcon That seems a hell of a lot less efficient than just arranging those in a smaller grid...
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@blakeyrat said in Project Sunroof, another high-quality bug-free product from Google!:
Not even the biggest tree would put stuff underneath it in the shade 24/7/365.
It doesn't need that, but trees to the south could definitely throw enough shade to make a serious dent in the power generation. Especially evergreens, of which there are a lot in the southeastern US, too, where the winter days are longer than in the Pacific Northwest.
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@boomzilla said in Project Sunroof, another high-quality bug-free product from Google!:
evergreens, of which there are a lot in the southeastern US
Yup.
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@tsaukpaetra said in Project Sunroof, another high-quality bug-free product from Google!:
Do they factor in that a typical house doesn't use as much electricity during the day (you know, when Solar Panels would be most effective), seeing as everyone is nominally at work or school?
You sell power back to the power company.
Enjoy being Enron
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They should be modeling the potential savings of paving the roads with solar panels.
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@dcon said in Project Sunroof, another high-quality bug-free product from Google!:
@jaloopa said in Project Sunroof, another high-quality bug-free product from Google!:
Is that a standard thing in installing solar panels? I've never heard of fitting them to trees.
https://www.revolvesolar.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Worlds-Tallest-Solar-Tree.jpg
I was thinking more of this.
@e4tmyl33t With them all at the same angle like that, it wouldn't be any more or less efficient than the same number of cells in an ordinary grid (like the ones you can see in the background). It'd be a waste of space and of the structural materials to build the "tree", though.
Putting them at different angles can help to improve the average energy yield. I'm pretty sure just putting them on a swivel and using a motor to keep them tilted toward the sun would be the most productive arrangement, but then the motor will burn some of that energy so it's a question of whether it generates enough extra energy to be worth it. (Sunflowers apparently thought so.)
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@blakeyrat said in Project Sunroof, another high-quality bug-free product from Google!:
Not even the biggest tree would put stuff underneath it in the shade 24/7/365.
It's hard enough getting solar cells to pay for themselves with optimal placement. Putting them in the shade, even partial shade, would be stupid.
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@anotherusername said in Project Sunroof, another high-quality bug-free product from Google!:
I'm pretty sure just putting them on a swivel and using a motor to keep them tilted toward the sun would be the most productive arrangement
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@tsaukpaetra said in Project Sunroof, another high-quality bug-free product from Google!:
Do they factor in that a typical house doesn't use as much electricity during the day (you know, when Solar Panels would be most effective), seeing as everyone is nominally at work or school?
From what I've heard, energy company pays you for the surplus. So, you still get the savings.
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@e4tmyl33t said in Project Sunroof, another high-quality bug-free product from Google!:
@dcon That seems a hell of a lot less efficient than just arranging those in a smaller grid...
You don't get lucrative government grants for being efficient.
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@anotherusername said in Project Sunroof, another high-quality bug-free product from Google!:
tilted toward the sun would be the most productive arrangement, but then the motor will burn some of that energy so it's a question of whether it generates enough extra energy to be worth it.
It does.
@anotherusername said in Project Sunroof, another high-quality bug-free product from Google!:
It'd be a waste of space and of the structural materials to build the "tree", though.
Trees have a bunch of efficiency systems built in. Their shape isn't solely for optimizing solar collection, which a panel array would miss out on.
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@xaade I was referring to the tree in @dcon's picture. There's no reason to do that; it's purely supposed to look nice. All of the solar cells are at the same angle relative to the sun's position so there's nothing gained by putting them in that "tree" vs. in a compact rectangular grid.
The link that I posted showed a tree where the solar cells were mounted at different angles. There, the goal was to maximize average light collection by a fixed array of solar cells, i.e. without moving them to track the sun.
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I suspect it doesn't know how to deal with multiple buildings of near equal size on the same lot (my Garage Mahal is about the same footprint as the house)
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@weng said in Project Sunroof, another high-quality bug-free product from Google!:
I suspect it doesn't know how to deal with multiple buildings of near equal size on the same lot (my Garage Mahal is about the same footprint as the house)
So it is even dumber than the tool that I used 6 months ago to check my property and a prospective new home for solar suitability? They showed an aerial view of the home and you clicked around and it drew a box on the roof line and then did its calculations. If they were not idiots they would have put in such a fallback.
Plus, multiple buildings would just mean more area for solar panels.
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@xaade said in Project Sunroof, another high-quality bug-free product from Google!:
rom what I've heard, energy company pays you for the surplus. So, you still get the savings.
From what I've heard, it's about 10% (ass-pull number) of what you'd pay for the same power. And they're trying really hard to weasel out of that too.
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@polygeekery said in Project Sunroof, another high-quality bug-free product from Google!:
So it is even dumber than the tool that I used 6 months ago to check my property and a prospective new home for solar suitability? They showed an aerial view of the home and you clicked around and it drew a box on the roof line and then did its calculations. If they were not idiots they would have put in such a fallback.
I tried it and I suspect they're analyzing the google maps image. Different parts of the roof seem to be highlighted based on their suitability for panels. I think they're also using local rates for the calculations. I assume the availability for different addresses must be due to the availability of quality imagery and possibly utility rates.
It definitely looks like someone's 20% project that made it to the public.
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@dcon said in Project Sunroof, another high-quality bug-free product from Google!:
From what I've heard, it's about 10% (ass-pull number) of what you'd pay for the same power. And they're trying really hard to weasel out of that too.
It depends on the area. Here it is ~50%, depending on when it is generated. In other areas they offer you nothing, you can feed back in to the grid for free if you have a surplus. In Hawaii they prohibit feeding in to the grid at all.
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@polygeekery A fascinating overview: http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/reversing-the-grid/
(the audio has more detail than the article)
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@yamikuronue said in Project Sunroof, another high-quality bug-free product from Google!:
(the audio has more detail than the article)
I was wondering where all the content was. :)
Will listen later, but the backstory in the text was interesting.
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@raceprouk said in Project Sunroof, another high-quality bug-free product from Google!:
Guess us Brits will have to wait to see just how buggy this is.
shouldn't it be "Aw snap! It looks like the sun hasn't reached your country yet! But it's working on it!" ?
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Estimated nine years to break even. I don't think so.