About SunScope 🌞

Inspiration 💡

At "Sun Scope," we're driven by a compelling vision: to empower homeowners to not only embrace sustainable living but also to benefit financially from it. We recognized a significant opportunity in motivating individuals to explore solar energy not just as an eco-friendly choice, but as a profitable investment. This led us to create a tool that simplifies the journey towards becoming both a consumer and a supplier of clean energy.

What it does 🏠

"Sun Scope" is a comprehensive web-based tool that provides users with essential information for solar panel installation and profitability. It calculates usable hours of sunlight, assesses the optimal area for panel installation, estimates revenue based on the number of panels, and determines the payback period. This information empowers homeowners to make informed decisions about investing in solar energy.

How we built it 🛠️

"Sun Scope" was crafted by integrating advanced web technologies with Google's Solar API to obtain precise geographic and solar data, where it incorporates AI computer vision to analyze geographic data and used weather forecasting algorithms for accurate predictions of usable sunlight hours. We crafted SunScope's intuitive front end using React and Vite with TypeScript, leveraging their robust ecosystems to create a responsive and dynamic user experience. For the backend, we implemented Flask to handle data processing and API management, ensuring seamless, efficient server-side operations. We deployed 'Sun Scope' by using Google Cloud Run for the backend and Netlify for the frontend. This setup allowed us to efficiently manage the application's different components and ensure a smooth user experience.

Challenges we ran into 😵

A significant challenge we faced with "Sun Scope" was adapting our platform for Canadian communities, particularly in tailoring it to the unique aspects of Canadian households and energy policies. Our initial models were based largely on data and research from the U.S. market. Therefore, we had to extensively modify our system to align with Canadian climatic conditions, local solar energy regulations, and specifically the electricity buyback schemes in Alberta. This adaptation was crucial to ensure that our Canadian users could fully benefit from the financial opportunities of selling back solar energy to the government, maximizing their potential profits.

Accomplishments that we're proud of 🎉

We take immense pride in "Sun Scope's" successful adaptation to the Canadian market, overcoming the significant challenge of localization. Our platform now not only accurately reflects the unique solar potential and energy policies in Canada but also provides homeowners with a clear path to becoming energy suppliers and making a profit. We are also proud of our technological achievement in seamlessly integrating state-of-the-art AI and weather forecasting into our platform, making complex solar energy calculations accessible and actionable for the average homeowner.

What we learned 📚

Throughout the development of "Sun Scope," we faced various technical challenges, particularly in mastering new technologies. Our journey involved a steep learning curve with Flask, a key web framework for our application, and Google's Solar API. We honed our skills in customizing these technologies to fit our specific needs, learning to efficiently extract and process relevant information from large datasets. Moreover, adapting to virtual collaboration across different time zones was new. This experience not only improved our technical expertise but also taught us valuable lessons in remote teamwork and data management.

What's next for SunScope 🔮

In the next phase of "Sun Scope," we are focused on expanding our impact through strategic collaborations and technological advancements. We plan to partner with provincial governments and regional solar panel installation companies to offer incentives and discounts to homeowners, thereby encouraging wider adoption of solar energy. Simultaneously, we're planning to develop a virtual 3D modeling feature for our platform. This innovative tool will enable users to visualize their homes with solar panels, allowing them to interactively customize panel placement and aesthetics. These efforts aim to make solar panel installation more accessible, appealing, and tailored to individual needs, significantly enhancing the user experience and promoting sustainable energy choices.

Built With

• flask
• google-cloud
• google-solar
• python
• react
• typescript
• vite