Hoping to save homeowners and businesses substantial sums of money, Los Angeles County officials on Monday unveiled a mapping program and Web site designed to help people determine if their properties are suitable for solar power.
The Web site calculates the suitability of solar panels for a given property by computing factors including the roof size, pitch and shade from nearby trees. All the user has to input is an address.
"Solar makes sense in Los Angeles and in Southern California," Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said. "This is one of the capitals of sunshine on the globe. We have more sunshine days in this city and county than probably most metropolitan areas in the United States."
Yaroslavsky typed in his address and discovered he had 125 square feet of space on his rooftop for solar panels, which would save him $400 annually in utility costs.
The Web site includes the largest solar map in the world, covering 3,000 square miles.
The Web site, created by the county's Chief Information Office and the Internal Services Department, was developed for $93,500 and was generated from high-resolution pictures acquired in 2006. It calculates and ranks incoming solar radiation every 25 square feet, using roof pitch, orientation and shading from surrounding structures and trees to provide the best estimate possible.
-- Troy Anderson, Staff Writer
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