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Google Shifting Its Attention Towards Your Rooftop, Checks If It's Solar Panel Worthy

Free of charge, unlimited miles behind the wheel of your car. That's every driver's dream and with the advent of EVs, it could someday become a reality. For the moment, though, unless you're the proud owner of a full-size wind turbine or a solar panel field, it's a bit trickier to achieve.
Google Project Sunroof 1 photo
Photo: Screenshot from YouTube
But Google is here to help. Well, only partially, but free help is always the best kind of assistance. More to the point, if you live in Boston, San Francisco or Fresno (I Googled it too), you can now go to Project Sunroof's website and insert your address. In return, you will receive an estimate of how much money you would be able to save on energy costs by installing solar panels on your roof. And since it's Google we're talking about, you will also be handed the contact of a local company ready, willing and able to help you with the actual installation.

Being the all-knowing and all-seeing entity that it is, Google can calculate how much sun your roof receives every day and then give you an honest opinion whether covering it with solar panels is a good idea or not.

It's estimated there are almost 16 million roofs in the US alone (yes, somebody counted the rooftops) owned by people who could take advantage of the power they could generate. What's more, even if you don't want to make an investment right away, there's always the option of leasing the equipment for a while for a smaller profit.

The project is restricted to those three cities at the moment, but Google is likely to expand it shortly. First it should go nation-wide while later it will become available in other corners of the world.

So back to what matters the most to us: powering an electrical vehicle. Clearly, it's too early for that, but saving significantly on the power bill? That sounds pretty sweet as well.

Being a good sport, Google even made a short clip to better explain its Project Sunroof. Here it is:

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About the author: Vlad Mitrache
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"Boy meets car, boy loves car, boy gets journalism degree and starts job writing and editing at a car magazine" - 5/5. (Vlad Mitrache if he was a movie)
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