Google's New Product Puts Peer Pressure to a Sunny Use

Project Sunroof was launched in 2015 by Carl Elkin, an engineer at Google who had worked on local solar-installation campaigns in Massachusetts. It now provides data for 60 million homes across the United States that it has already assessed with its algorithms. For the past two years, Project Sunroof has walked people through all the information-gathering steps of installing solar panels: After you tell it where you live, its algorithms estimate how much solar energy falls on your roof, calculate how much solar panels would reduce your electricity bill, and deliver estimates from local installation firms like Solar City. It can also walk you through similar steps if you're interested in leasing or borrowing panels. "It highlights that, for many people, solar is often free. In many cases, including for my house, solar is better than free," Elkin told me last week.