Google’s Project Sunroof Expands To 42 US States

In an innocuous announcement last month, Google has expanded Project Sunroof to 42 states across the US, up from 10 states in December.

We first heard of Google’s Project Sunroof nearly a year ago. At the time, it was simply the latest in a number of Google’s 20% projects. In the company’s 2004 IPO letter, Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin explained the idea: “We encourage our employees, in addition to their regular projects, to spend 20% of their time working on what they think will most benefit Google,” they wrote. “This empowers them to be more creative and innovative. Many of our significant advances have happened in this manner.”

In August of 2015, Carl Elkin wrote about his 20% project, Project Sunroof, an online tool which helps “homeowners explore whether they should go solar or not” by providing access to high-resolution aerial mapping to help calculate a roof’s solar energy potential “without having to climb up any ladders.” We soon discovered that Project Sunroof had teamed up with big names such as SunPower, SunEdison, Sungevity, and more.

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