Singapore startup launches instant rooftop solar assessment tool
Solar AI Technologies has launched a free online solar assessment tool that lets homeowners and building occupants in Singapore instantly find out the solar potential of their roof and how much they can save. All a user needs to do is enter their building address and electricity bill.
“Most Singaporeans are unaware of the benefits of solar, nor realise that they can actually make money from installing solar. Apart from reducing their electricity bills, solar owners can also sell excess energy back into the grid. By building this tool, we hope to help Singaporeans learn about how their homes or companies can benefit from solar in a personalised way.” said Bolong Chew, founder and CEO of Solar AI.
The cost of solar has fallen 80 per cent in the last 10 years, and is continuing to decline. Getting solar is no longer just for the environmentally conscious, but has now become a way to save money in the longer run.
To find out the rooftop solar potential of a house or building, customers currently have to approach solar energy companies who then use various tools to manually assess their rooftops. The assessment process is often complicated, taking anywhere between an hour to 2 full days for each roof, based on the roof complexity and the level of accuracy required. With Solar AI’s solar assessment tool, all a customer needs to do is plug in their address as well as their electricity bill information.
The assessment tool is a first of its kind in the region, with a database of more than 20,000 (and growing) commercial buildings pre-calculated with solar potential estimates. Solar AI has also discovered a total of 3.6 gigawatts (GW) of untapped rooftop solar potential in Singapore.
The tool takes into consideration data points like the amount of sun over the roof location, usable space on the roof for solar panels, as well as the user’s electricity bills. These data points are used to recommend an estimated size of the solar system on the roof, as well as its cost savings potential and environmental impact.
Using artificial intelligence, Solar AI has also built computer vision models on satellite imagery to detect rooftops and assess its available roof space and characteristics to automate the solar assessment process. By deploying these models at scale, Solar AI aims to drastically reduce the cost of the assessment process and make this information easily available for both building owners as well as solar energy companies.
The Singapore-based startup has plans to expand the solar assessment tool regionally to Southeast Asia and Australia from 2021.
The online solar assessment tool is now available. Homeowners or building owners who are interested to access the tool should visit: www.getsolar.ai/solar-estimate.
About Solar AI Technologies
Solar AI is a Singapore-based data analytics startup which provides building intelligence software for energy companies to discover new rooftop solar projects. Solar AI’s mission is to hyperscale the deployment of distributed solar and the transition towards 100 per cent renewables by modernising the way rooftop solar is sold.
Source : eco-business
