Google's Project Sunroof gives you solar panel peer pressure
You can look up whether your neighbors are adding solar installations to their roofs.
Roger Cheng Former Executive Editor / Head of News
Roger Cheng (he/him/his) was the executive editor in charge of CNET News, managing everything from daily breaking news to in-depth investigative packages. Prior to this, he was on the telecommunications beat and wrote for Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal for nearly a decade and got his start writing and laying out pages at a local paper in Southern California. He's a devoted Trojan alum and thinks sleep is the perfect -- if unattainable -- hobby for a parent.
Expertise Mobile, 5G, Big Tech, Social Media Credentials
- SABEW Best in Business 2011 Award for Breaking News Coverage, Eddie Award in 2020 for 5G coverage, runner-up National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Award for culture analysis.
Google's Project Sunroof now lets you see who has put solar panels on their rooftops.
"Keeping up with the Joneses" may include adding solar panels to your roof.
Google on Monday showed off a new update to its Project Sunroof initiative that lets you look at the existing solar installations in the US. More importantly, Project Sunroof Data Explorer can show you if your neighbors have already upgraded to solar.
Google said it combined machine learning with Google Maps and Google Earth imagery to determine which houses have solar panels. The company has identified 700,000 installations in the US with solar panels.