The Metropolis of London has launched a brand new on-line instrument designed to assist householders determine whether or not photo voltaic panels are a viable choice for his or her electrical energy wants.
The instrument is an internet map known as MyHEAT Photo voltaic, which permits Londoners to search out out the advantages and prices related to putting in photo voltaic panels, with knowledge particular to their dwelling.
“We actually need to interact and encourage Londoners to take motion to cut back their emissions,” mentioned Jamie Skimming, vitality and local weather change supervisor for the Metropolis of London.
The map, created by MyHEAT and Google, makes use of Google Maps and different applied sciences reminiscent of aerial imagery to find out the vitality potential of metropolis houses by monitoring climate patterns, orientation of roofs, and the solar’s place within the sky relative to the homes at any given second.
This knowledge is used to offer related data to Londoners in regards to the influence putting in photo voltaic panels can have on their wallets, and the surroundings.
Customers can enter their tackle to search out their dwelling. When their dwelling is chosen, the web site will instantly present the essential metrics particular to the measurements taken instantly from the map, together with the instructed set up dimension adjusted to the consumer’s month-to-month electrical energy invoice, and the scale of their roof.
The web site outlines extra particulars such because the upfront value of set up, variety of years till the panels pay for themselves, and the full financial savings after 25 years of operation. It additionally consists of what number of tons of carbon dioxide can be offset, in addition to the variety of related timber planted, and the way a lot the quantity of emissions of vehicles is essential.
“If we take a look at our native greenhouse gasoline emission sources right here in London, single household houses are our second largest supply of emissions,” Skimming mentioned.
These greenhouse gasoline emissions will be considerably diminished when photo voltaic panels are put in on a house, one thing Skimming says makes them an effective way for Londoners to contribute to the Plan. Municipal Local weather Motion.
He added that even the easy sight of a neighbor’s photo voltaic panels can put the surroundings on the forefront of some individuals’s minds.
Solar rise
When Londoners are requested about what they need to do to get the local weather plan into their actions, photo voltaic panels normally come to thoughts for householders, Skimming mentioned.
“It is like shopping for an electrical car or shopping for an E-bike,” he added.
Rooftop solar energy era is on the rise throughout Canada. MyHEAT has web sites arrange in Edmonton and Fredericton, and the Metropolis of Calgary is making an identical instrument out there in April 2022.
In 2021 throughout an interview with CBC Information, Nicholas Gall, a director of the Canadian Renewable Vitality Affiliation, mentioned that the demand for photo voltaic installations is on a meteoric rise. Knowledge from his affiliation exhibits that business and residential photo voltaic era has grown from sufficient to energy a number of hundred houses a decade in the past, to sufficient to energy greater than 100,000 houses. .
The Metropolis of London hopes to make use of the information collected from customers’ interactions with the MyHEAT map to measure and quantify the demand for photo voltaic vitality in London.
As soon as customers determine their dwelling on the map, Skimming mentioned hyperlinks to London Hydro and the Canada Greener Houses Grant web page are listed on the web site. These sources present the subsequent steps for Londoners hoping to proceed with the set up.
The MyHEAT photo voltaic map for London will be discovered at this hyperlink: https://photo voltaic.myheat.ca/london/
