Google has launched a new site to make it easier for homeowners to review the costs and benefits of installing solar panels on their home.
The site, referred to as Project Sunroof, combines data from Google Earth with calculations on how much shade nearby trees cast over a rooftop, local weather patterns, industry pricing, and available subsidies, to ultimately provide homeowners with a bottom line investment / return approximation. 
Project Sunroof was previously available this summer in San Francisco and Fresno, California. In December, though, the service expanded to Raleigh, North Carolina, as well as 15 other metro areas in Arizona, Nevada, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and Colorado.
These areas were selected based on various criteria, including Google’s available satellite imagery, and local market conditions like government incentives.
“We at Google believe in solar energy. The solar industry needs our help,” said Carl Elkin, the senior software engineer behind the service.
Google has made significant investments into the solar industry of late, totaling well over $1 billion in just the last few years. This includes a $300 million investment into a fund that finances residential rooftop projects installed by SolarCity, Corp earlier in 2015.
Worth noting — in 2011, the company also made a $250 million investment in to SolarCity.
Project Sunroof is considered a much more user-friendly approach for the general consumer considering solar panel installation on their home, especially when positioned against the more complex calculator provided by the U.S. Energy Department.
Solar accounts for roughly 1% of the country’s total reported electricity generation (per the US Energy Information Administration). About two-thirds of this group is from utility-scale solar arrays that generally spread across rural tracts. To incentivize homeowners to install solar panels on their property, 46 of the country’s states have laws in place called “net metering”, which is the practice of selling power from solar cells not being used back to the local electric utility.
To see the cost and benefits of solar panel installation on your home, head to Google’s Project Sunroof website.
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