Homeowners and businesses in Switzerland can now find out the solar power potential of their buildings at the click of a button. The Swiss Federal Office of Energy has released an interactive map which shows the solar potential of every rooftop in the country.
To find out how much solar energy a building can produce you just need to click on a building on the How much electricity or heat can my roof produce? interactive map. Roofs on the map are colored to show their solar power potential (with red showing the houses with the best potential and blue indicating roofs with low solar potential). If you click on a building you can view details on how many potential kilowatt hours the roof can produce and how much that energy is worth.
The potential solar power that can be generated by individual buildings is calculated based on the size, orientation, inclination and the amount of potential sunlight of the building's roof. You can view the solar power potential for a building based on the whole roof being used, or for half or three-quarters of the roof being used for solar panels.
If you live in the USA you can try Google's Project Sunroof instead. This potential solar energy tool from Google calculates how much sunlight buildings in America are likely to receive throughout the year. It can therefore help you make a more informed decision about whether you should install solar panels.
Enter an address into Project Sunroof and you can view an estimate of how many hours of sunlight your roof receives per year, the square feet you have available for solar panels and the estimated net savings that you could make.
Australians can use the SunSPoT Solar Potential Map which shows the solar power potential of buildings in an ever growing list of Australian cities.
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