MyHEAT: Helping cities reach energy efficiency goals with the Solar API
About MyHEAT
MyHEAT promotes renewable energy programs for cities worldwide by developing technologies and methods to detect, map, and monitor the energy waste and potential energy savings for buildings of all sizes. The company's mission is to give users all the information they need to make buildings more energy efficient.
Tell us your challenge. We're here to help.
Contact usTo support energy efficiency at scale, MyHEAT uses the Solar API data, insights, and imagery to educate residents, utility companies, and cities on the solar potential of their homes and buildings.
Google Maps Platform results
- Significantly reduces time necessary to build solar potential solutions for their customers
- Improves efficiency, accuracy, and quality of 3D map imagery that accounts for obstructions, cloud cover, and sun positions
- Supports future expansion with global access to solar maps created independently of private LIDAR datasets
Quality solar map solutions are delivered more quickly
How do you make cities more energy efficient? With energy consumption in residential and commercial buildings contributing to over 30% of US greenhouse gas emissions, it's a pressing issue. To inspire change for a better global future, MyHEAT is showing cities how to reduce the amount of energy needed to heat and cool their buildings, while also influencing citizens to transition to solar energy.
"Unfortunately, energy efficiency isn't a super sexy conversation starter," says James Henry, Director of Growth & Sustainability, MyHEAT. "So we're developing visually exciting and personalized interactive tools that engage people on responsible energy use."
Through aerial thermal imagery, MyHEAT pinpoints heat loss for individual buildings at a city scale and uses that imagery to drive behavior change and improvements in energy efficiency, weatherization, and electrification. MyHEAT then works with partners to put the right message with the right image in front of thousands of people, at the right time. "Our ethos is that we don't just build a map and hand it over to clients. We collaborate long term to get people engaged with thermal loss imagery, something they might have never seen before, and help them understand what it means and why it matters," Henry explains.
That imagery can help residents understand their home's infrastructural problems so they can take action, which could include anything from getting a home energy audit to accessing a list of approved local contractors for air sealing. That's why MyHEAT is known amongst its clients for "making energy visible."
MyHEAT upgraded the LIDAR-supported Solar Map to one powered by the Solar API, and the result was a lot quicker, easier, more accurate, clearer, and more visually pleasing.
—James Henry, Director of Growth & Sustainability, MyHEATUtility companies and governments of varying sizes across North America leverage MyHEAT's flagship product, their Heat Loss Maps, to gain actionable insights that help them drive energy conservation projects at scale.
Making solar potential visible with the Solar API
Building on their mission to increase energy efficiency, MyHEAT launched their latest product in 2021, a solar potential map that currently serves municipalities and cities across Canada. This was the result of a fruitful integration of the Solar API from Google Maps Platform.
Initially, MyHEAT developed a Solar Map using Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) data obtained by the City of Edmonton. "It was laborious to develop something from scratch," recalls Henry. "Some of the details were fuzzy in the LIDAR dataset. So the estimates weren't as accurate as we had hoped, and the visuals weren't as clear or engaging for the buildings' occupants."
Not long after launch, MyHEAT reached out to Google to discuss Project Sunroof, the pilot program aimed at testing the utility of 3D models derived from aerial imagery to estimate the amount of sun hitting a rooftop and how these datasets apply to various business use cases. This eventually led to their integration of the Solar API. "MyHEAT upgraded the LIDAR-supported Solar Map to one powered by the Solar API, resulting in quicker and easier access to more accurate, clear, and more visually pleasing maps," says Henry. "And the fact that the Solar API holds a database of insights for many other regions means we won't have to rely on whether or not a city has its own LIDAR data to expand and produce more maps in the future."
From then on, MyHEAT's solar potential map became part of the company's suite of tools used to show people in the cities they serve the energy efficiency potential of their homes. "In contrast with energy efficiency, solar energy is something naturally more exciting and interesting to talk about, but it's a big expenditure and people are often unsure whether solar panels are right for their home. They hesitate to engage with a local installer if they don't understand what their payback period will be," says Henry. To help, MyHEAT uses the solar potential map to quickly educate homeowners on whether their home is appropriate for solar panel installation, before they dedicate hours into research.
Google is a leading mapping provider and this gives us and our clients confidence in its 3D imagery accuracy. The Sunroof Project model even accounts for complex factors such as nearby obstructions from tall trees, and shows those areas as dark shaded purple. This is invaluable for solar potential forecasting.
—James Henry, Director of Growth & Sustainability, MyHEAT"The imagery provided by the Solar API is highly engaging and hyper personalized, making it the perfect solution to spark interest and start conversations around the transition to solar," explains Henry. Being a big investment, it's important to provide homeowners information around why it's important, what they can do, and how they can take action. MyHEAT works with their partners to not only implement the public-facing platform, but to strategize and consult on marketing campaigns that communicate this imagery in a way that drives results.
Gaining speed and image accuracy with the Solar API
MyHEAT's solar potential maps can be configured in the backend with locally-specific information such as net metering, billing policy, and buy-sell rates, and the local average cost to install solar panels per kilowatt. Integrating this information with data from the Solar API, the company can quickly produce a comprehensive report and visual map for their partners.
"We have a frontend template and can plug the backend straight to the Solar API to speed up our creation process," Henry explains. "If we have all the information needed, such as local install costs, we can create a solar potential map solution for a city in 4 to 6 weeks, as opposed to 3 to 6 months."
A second advantage of using the Solar API is its ease of use for accessing comprehensive imagery. "Google is a leading mapping provider and this gives us and our clients confidence in its 3D imagery accuracy. The Solar API model even accounts for complex factors such as sun positions over the course of a year, taking into account nearby obstructions like tall trees, showing those areas in dark shaded purple. This is invaluable for solar potential forecasting," Henry describes.
MyHEAT also leverages the use of broader Google Maps Platform capabilities such as Autocomplete to ensure the address that the consumer gives is valid, guaranteeing the solar potential map delivered is for the correct home or building.
With the Solar API, we get to use the best of mapping technology to deliver our end users products that look, feel, and work in a very smooth and professional way.
—James Henry, Director of Growth & Sustainability, MyHEAT"Google provides high-resolution visual layers that help our end users, from cities to utility companies to homeowners, engage with our product with familiarity and ease of use," says Henry. "With the Solar API, we get to use the best mapping technology to deliver end users a product that looks, feels, and works in a very smooth and professional way."
Envisioning more ways to build an energy-efficient world
MyHEAT understands that the decision to install solar is generally not done in isolation. Homeowners are often looking into other forms of energy conservation as well, or plan on making subsequent home improvements or purchases. For instance, they may be looking into repairing their roof, replacing windows, getting a heat pump, or purchasing an electric vehicle.
With this in mind MyHEAT is continually looking for ways to engage homeowners and get them thinking about the best energy solutions for their home over the next 10-20 years, using the visual power of unique imagery from their SOLAR Maps and HEAT Maps. By exploring advanced weatherization along with solar energy and their personal current and future needs, they can help homeowners find solutions they may not have thought about. The idea is to give them as much information as possible to feel confident in taking the next step.
"So again, it all goes back to the power of the visual to hook their interest and engage them in something hyper-personalized to them, something the Solar API has tremendously helped with," says Henry, "and then taking them on a journey of education so they have a much better understanding of what's possible than they had 5 minutes ago."
Tell us your challenge. We're here to help.
Contact us
About MyHEAT
MyHEAT promotes renewable energy programs for cities worldwide by developing technologies and methods to detect, map, and monitor the energy waste and potential energy savings for buildings of all sizes. The company's mission is to give users all the information they need to make buildings more energy efficient.