power – SomeGadgetGuy

It can sometimes be a bit difficult finding good information on installing solar panels. Google’s Project Sunroof hopes to make the process a bit easier.

Utilizing their mapping data, and monitoring trends from homes with panels already installed, Google will be creating a database for home owners to search. Answering questions like how much sun a roof might receive, what options they have for installation in their area, and what the costs versus savings might look like.

The project is only currently supporting three cities, Boston, San Francisco, and Fresno, but knowing Google’s ability to traffic this kind of data, I would imagine the project will grow quickly. How do you not easily add a city like Phoenix or Albuquerque right?

Hit the Project Sunroof site for more info.

I was going to make a “Rain in Spain Falls mainly on the Plains” joke, but I couldn’t quite make it work. As it stands, those plains are now probably dotted with giant windmills.

A first for Spain, and for any country, as most of their power over 2013 was generated by wind. Unseating Nuclear, Spain generated 20.9% of their electricity using wind farms. Quite an accomplishment. Even more exciting knowing that renewable energy, including tidal generators and solar, made up almost 45% of Spain’s power, taking pressure off of Nuclear and Coal fire plants.

Definitely something worth examining here stateside, as distributing our energy policy could stand to make local communities a lot of money while being better for the environment. We’re still toying with solar in the southwest, but recently Texas has been on a wind kick, and throughout the MidWest wind is starting to rival the cost effectiveness of coal even though it lacks the subsidies.

Red Eléctrica de España has a pretty cool site tracking daily energy usage, and how much of that demand is being met by renewables.