California Solar Power Mashup

Environment,Startups by on January 25, 2008 at 6:13 pm

The guys at Cooler Planet, put together a very cool Google Map mashup of the growth of solar power in California.

You can see how solar panel installations have grown over time. I took these two screenshots of the installations in Northern California. I find it fascinating that there is more solar generating capacity in Berkeley than in San Francisco or Oakland.

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California Solar Heat Map 2001California Solar Heat Map 2008

They used hard-to-access, but publicly available data to build a yearly snapshot of the CA solar installations. I think its a great example of what you can do with government data that hasn’t really ever been put together in a compelling manner.

I’m thrilled to see them take a ‘content-rich’ approach to the solar space. While they don’t make money directly from work like this, it helps build their credibility and awareness in the space and helps establish themselves as a leading solar content destination.

(Disclosure: I made a small investment awhile back in Cooler Planet)

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