alt Hacker NewsShow HN: Helios – what plug-in solar could generate for any address in Britain
Plug-in solar panels (no electrician needed) have just become legal in the UK and will go on sale soon. Helios estimates how much electricity a typical installation could generate at a given address and what that's worth against your tariff.
It uses UK government LIDAR data to reflect the actual skyline, so it knows whether there's a building or a hill blocking the sun.
Caveats: - Outside LIDAR coverage (most of Scotland and Wales) it falls back to a synthetic horizon (less accurate). - Trees and recent developments (post-2022 or so) may not be in the data, and some address placements could be off (geocoding via OSM).
Feedback on the shading model especially welcome.
Comments
Really cool stuff. Nitpick: it failed to grab an OSM ID for my house and fell back to postcode centroid, but then still reported LIDAR-derived shading at quite high precision.
I'm wondering if it should fall back to a more general shading approach when no OSM building footprint is available, to avoid false precision? My street has a gap in the houses on the other side from mine, so picking the right location matters for the calculation.
You could also try Inspire Index polygons instead of OSM? These correspond to actual lease/freehold boundaries.
Huh, TIL about the National LIDAR Programme: https://www.data.gov.uk/dataset/f0db0249-f17b-4036-9e65-3091...
Very interesting stuff and quite a large undertaking! I'm often impressed by the quality of the UK's open data.
Nice. I'm working on a project called homestocompare to help people house-hunting in the UK.
Would be nice to add this as an extra data point when comparing. Are you open to collaborating at all?
Would be good to be able to select multiple points on the compass and have it tell me the best place for it (front and back garden)
This is really nice! Would be great if it could handle regular rooftop solar calculations too.
Great work. Is it possible to use this dataset to calculate total plug in solar potential within the geographic constraint?
> Worth it. The kit pays for itself in 7.1 years; over 20 years it's good for about £1,095 net.
This is my issue with this sort of thing. Am I going to have this kit in 7 years? Or would I upgrade to better stuff at the technology improves?