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Satellite powered estimation of global solar potential
December 12, 2024 Vishal Batchu, Senior Software Engineer, Google Research, and Betty Peng, Senior Software Engineer, Google High-quality satellite digital surface models and roof segmentation power Google Maps Platform Solar API expansion in the global south and reduce global revisit times. Energy demand is set to increase dramatically in coming years, and residential solar power is poised to play a crucial role in meeting this challenge sustainably.
Though working with lower-resolution satellite imagery presents new challenges, such as the scarcity of accurate elevation maps, reduced image quality, and distortions from oblique viewing angles, we see this as a significant opportunity to accelerate the growth of solar markets in new regions. To address these challenges, we’ve developed new ML models that can generate high-quality nadir (overhead) DSMs and planar roof segment instances from single-view satellite imagery. We would like to thank individuals in Google Research, Geo and DeepMind who carried out this work and made the launch possible, including (in alphabetical order): Alex Wilson, Alicia Noel, Ariel Mann, Artem Zholus, Betty Peng, Carl Elkin, Christina Ranalli, Christopher Schmidt, Christopher Van Arsdale, Courtney Maimon, Dana Kurnaiwan, Hedva Uriel, Jenna Hussein, Jordan Raisher, Juliet Rothenberg, Lisa Lovallo Ceppos, Marisa Leung, Mike Tavendale, Nobal Preet Singh, Paul Moniuszko, Peleg Amon, Rajroshan Sawhney, Revati Thatte, Ross Goroshin, Saleem Van Groenou, Sritoma Bhattacharjee, Tuvia Alon, Umangi Jain, Varun Gulshan and Vishal Batchu.
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