Solar Potential — analyse a rooftop from just an address
Solar Potential is the fastest way to size a rooftop before you visit — paste in an address and get an estimate of usable roof area, annual generation, and the shape of the sun year-round. Powered by Google’s Solar API, no manual roof measurement needed.
When to use it
Section titled “When to use it”Reach for Solar Potential whenever a homeowner gives you their address and you want a same-conversation answer to “is my roof worth it?” — before you send a quote, before you drive out, often before they’re ready to commit to a site visit.
It’s not a substitute for a real survey. Google’s data covers most European cities well but has gaps in rural areas, and it doesn’t know about a tree planted last year or a roof extension from three. Treat the output as a first-pass worth-visiting signal, not a final bill of materials.
How to run it
Section titled “How to run it”- From your sidebar, open Pre-Sales Tools → Solar Potential.
- In the Address field, paste a postal address, a raw latitude/longitude, or a Google Maps link.
- Click Analyse Solar Potential.
The result usually returns within a few seconds. If Google’s data doesn’t cover the address you gave, you’ll see an error saying so — try a nearby known address if you’re spot-checking a small village.
What the result tells you
Section titled “What the result tells you”You get, for the analysed roof:
- Usable roof area — the flat surface Google identified as suitable for panels, after excluding chimneys, edges, and low-sun regions.
- Annual generation estimate — the expected kWh output over a full year, in the analysed location’s climate.
- Monthly shape — generation distributed month by month, using a fixed seasonal curve calibrated to Greek PVGIS data (peak June–August around 12–13% each, low December under 4%). Applied to every analysis today regardless of country — treat it as indicative, not locally precise, outside Greece.
- Suggested system size — a rough kWp number based on usable area and typical panel density.
Everything except the address is derived, not entered — so you don’t have to guess numbers before the customer conversation.
Cost — none to you
Section titled “Cost — none to you”Solar Potential runs on your techs.solar plan — no per-lookup fee, no key to configure. Lookups are rate-limited to a handful per minute to protect the shared quota; ordinary single-address use won’t come close, but if you hit it you’ll see a short “please wait” message. Analyses are cached by rooftop location, so re-opening the same rooftop — even one another installer already looked up — is free and instant.
What Solar Potential doesn’t do
Section titled “What Solar Potential doesn’t do”- Full financial analysis — for payback and 20-year savings, use roi-calculator.
- Roof layout drawing — for laying out panels per section by hand, use panel-layout.
- Bill-based sizing — to size from a customer’s actual consumption, use Bill Analyzer.
- Live shading assessment — Google’s data is a snapshot; only an on-site survey catches new obstacles.
Where to go from here
Section titled “Where to go from here”- Broader look at what the pre-sales toolkit does: pre-sales-tools-overview
- Once you have an address, run the numbers: roi-calculator
- Drawing panels on the roof section: panel-layout