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The Solar API is a commercial Google Maps Platform product that enables remote rooftop solar system qualification and design. The API fuses overhead imagery, rooftop data, historical weather patterns, and financial values to eliminate the need for on-site visits. Additionally, the API provides data availability regarding existing solar arrays, which helps energy companies identify installed systems to easily enable battery storage, EV charger and whole home electrification installations.

• Building Insights: Provides roof segments, the number of panels that fit on the roof, the solar potential of panel layouts and detects previously installed solar panels & arrays.

• Data Layers: Offers geoTIFF imagery files including digital surface maps (DSM), overhead RGB images, and solar flux.

Customers are responsible for creating their own API keys via the Google Cloud Console. Google strongly recommends restricting API keys by limiting their usage exclusively to the APIs needed for your specific application to maintain security.

A single API call to the Data Layers endpoint covers all available GeoTIFF files for a given latitude and longitude. Users pay one flat price per successful API call regardless of whether they access one GeoTIFF or all available GeoTIFFs for that location.

No, the Solar API does not provide bulk data downloads or batch file exports. Bulk data downloads are possible using the Solar Insights Geospatial Analytics product. The Solar API features quota limitations for bulk queries, and the Terms of Service require data to be re-downloaded every 30 days for ongoing usage.

No, users cannot customize solar panel placement or change input assumptions like panel size, efficiency, or wattage through the Building Insights endpoint. The API utilizes a basic algorithm that automatically fits as many panels as possible into the sunniest roof areas to deliver rapid, high-level solar potential assessments. Users wanting custom layouts should use the Data Layers API as a starting point for their own designs.

A digital surface model (DSM) is a high-resolution, three-dimensional representation of the Earth's surface that includes the elevation of all natural and man-made features, such as buildings and trees.

Within the Solar API, the DSM functions as a critical data layer for solar design:

• Heightfield Data: The DSM provides a precise heightfield for rooftops and surrounding areas.

• Custom Layouts: Developers use the DSM from the Data Layers API as the starting point for creating custom solar panel layouts.

• Feature Calculation: The DSM supplies the raw elevation data needed to accurately calculate roof pitch, azimuth, and potential shading from nearby obstacles.

No, the Solar API will not offer aerial RGB imagery in areas without height data (digital surface models). The API only releases data in regions where all prerequisites necessary for processing are already available.

Yes, you can use the imagery from the Data Layers endpoint alongside other Google Maps imagery. However, the imagery may not align perfectly because the Solar API and Google Maps prioritize different versions of the source imagery. The Solar API prioritizes the highest resolution imagery that is internally processed for a given area, which ensures the RGB layer is perfectly aligned temporally and spatially with the Solar DSM (height data).

The Solar API works best for energy companies needing data to understand the building potential for energy solutions for a particular address. Primary use cases include:

• Qualifying leads: Remotely qualifying inbound solar installation leads based on roof potential data.

• System design: Remotely designing solar panel systems on rooftops with high accuracy.

• Detecting solar arrays: Remotely detecting if a specific location has an existing solar array installed.

• Customer education: Equipping property owners with data to understand their solar potential and financial savings.

The Building Insights API charges users per successful query based on their total monthly request volume. Google Maps Platform does not bill customers for API requests that result in a NOT_FOUND (404) error, though these unmatched queries still count against overall usage limits.

The best way to verify data availability for a specific building is to make a request to the Building Insights endpoint (FindClosestBuildingRequest). The response returns the closest building to the provided latitude and longitude and includes information regarding the available imagery quality.

Data regarding existing solar installations is available via the Detected Arrays feature within the Building Insights API. Businesses can query a specific location to access data on the presence of solar panels on a building, eliminating the need for an on-site visit. When queried, the endpoint returns the following key data points:

• Detection Status: Indicates whether solar array installations are present, not present, or if data for the area is unavailable.

• Capture time: Returns the exact date of the satellite image used to verify the solar array detection.

Yes, the Solar API takes into account shading from nearby trees and buildings. The flux layers calculate sunlight while fully accounting for these physical obstructions, as well as the specific roof azimuth and pitch.

Flux measures the annual or monthly sunlight on roofs using a GeoTIFF format where values are represented in kWh/kW/year. Flux calculations include:

• Hourly solar irradiance data.

• The position of the sun at each hour of the year.

• Weather patterns and clouds.

• Shading from nearby obstacles and roof orientation.

Yes, developers can specify the exact quality of data using the exactQualityRequired and requiredQuality parameters. To ensure maximum building coverage and broader results, developers should set the requiredQuality parameter to BASE.

Key details for these settings include:

• Quality Specification: When exactQualityRequired is set to true, the API returns the specific quality indicated by the requiredQuality field if it is available. When set to false, the endpoint defaults to returning the highest quality available data.

• Broader Results (BASE): The requiredQuality parameter defines the minimum imagery quality for your results. By default, the API only returns HIGH quality data. Setting requiredQuality=BASE ensures you receive the maximum possible building coverage.

• Detected Arrays Exemption: This quality setting applies only to Building Insights. Detected Arrays data is unaffected because it uses a different imagery source. However, since the API only returns panel data if a building has been found first, using the BASE setting maximizes your chances of a successful building match to trigger the panel detection.

Yes, users can extract roof segment polygons by combining data from both endpoints. Developers can utilize the Digital Surface Model (DSM) from the Data Layers API response in conjunction with the roof segment information from the Building Insights API response.