Fresh off the announcement of Tesla’s solar slate tiles, Zillow is making it easier for home seekers to buy based on a home’s solar power potential.
Zillow has joined forces with Sun Number, a Minnesota based company that scores homes on their potential to generate solar energy.
Potential (solar) energy
Started in 2012, Sun Number’s mission is to make it easier for home owners to determine their potential solar capacity based on the square footage of their roof, home orientation, average weather, and possible obstructions that might cast shade on the house. Once solar seekers plug in their address, they’re supplied with a “sun number” and connected with local solar installers.
“Our goal is to increase solar installations by providing an easy-to-understand assessment of a building’s solar potential and streamlining the solar installer’s customer acquisition process,” Sun Number touts in their mission statement. Their partnership with is going to achieve exactly that.
Putting a spotlight on solar
Zillow started placing sun number scores right under the last selling price on each home’s page. While most homes for sale in Los Angeles have a Sun Number entry, at this time, based on a scattered assessment of other homes in the country, it seems that only houses in major metro areas have Sun Number scores. Hopefully we’ll watch this change in the future.
For most green-inspired homeowners in the U.S., solar is a distant goal. It’s out of reach, too expensive, or just not-quite-worth-it ideal. Solar relies on home owners making the initial investment to change our reliance on traditional (and not so green) energy sources. The beauty and the sheer difficulty of a solar nation is that it requires everyone (or at least more than just a handful of people) to participate, and that’s a huge gap to bridge.
A small, green step
This new partnership not only gives home seekers a breadth of information about their house and neighborhood, but it also puts a premium on green energy. This partnership prioritizes the importance of solar potential, and it points to the direction we are (or at least should be) going.
#SunNumber
