Google’s Solar Potential API can help power Filipino homes during El Niño season

GOOGLE has launched a new feature that can calculate the potential of a specific home to harness solar energy which can help produce power during El Niño season in the Philippines when the power grid is severely strained.

Screengrab: Google APIs

Available through Google Maps, the Solar Panel Application Programming Interface, also called Solar Potential API and shortly Solar API, can generate data on how much solar energy a user’s roof can produce. The API uses aerial imagery of the roof’s angle, tree cover and shading, and combined with regional weather data patterns and electricity costs. This helps the user decide whether or not to install solar panels on their homes.

Inspired by Google’s campaign in 2017 to encourage more people to understand solar energy and recognize its valuable use, Project Sunroof, a search giant solar panel mapping tool and calculator, was created. 

Solar energy potential in the Philippines

According to global think tank Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), the Philippines has a natural advantage for solar energy development due to long peak hours of sunlight at an average of 4.5-5 hours a day.

The policy brief entitled It’s More Sun in the Philippines cites US National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s (NREL) computation that Philippines’ potential solar power generating capacity is at 4.5-5.5 kilowatt hours (kWh) per square meter per day, or 135 kWh per month.

Photo Courtesy: Unsplash

In an article about saving electricity, Metrobank wrote that the average monthly energy consumption of residential customers in the Philippines is at 200 kWh.

This consumption significantly increases during the El Niño season where Filipino households, as a remedy to the intense heat, have relied on continuous usage of electric fans and air conditioning units further straining the already thin capacity of power grids. This has led to rotational power outages across regions and cities that last hours and even days.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), El Niño is a climate pattern related to the warming of ocean surfaces in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean.

Since the onset of El Niño in 2024, Philippines already recorded the worst cases of drought conditions in 19 provinces in Luzon including Metro Manila, 11 in Visayas, and 1 in Mindanao, characterised by way below normal rainfall conditions for 3 consecutive months.

Task Force El Niño—a government arm reconstituted to establish strategies to prepare and rehabilitate from the impacts of El Niño—Spokesperson Joey Villarama said via televised briefing that “Every day, actually nadadagdagan iyong mga cities and municipalities na nagdideklara ng state of calamity. So, as of today, nasa 276 cities and municipalities, mayroon pa tayong matatanggap na mga ulat na patungkol sa deklarasyon ng state of calamity.”

How can Solar API help Filipinos?

While availability in the Philippines is yet to be made, the API currently provides rooftop solar potential information for more than 320 million cities across 40 countries including USA, Japan, France, and Germany.

Using solar panels is an effective way in response to the energy crisis the Philippines currently suffer from especially during the El Niño season, promoting shift to renewable energy at the same time. 

Despite slow growth in the Philippines, market research company Mordor Intelligence observed an 18 percent increase in the installation of small-scale solar photovoltaic (PV) panels in the residential sector citing a 2022 report of International Renewable Energy Agency, and believes “the solar PV segment will likely dominate the Philippine solar energy market” by 2040.

In the Philippines, solar panel costs vary based on the panel type, brand, manufacturer, battery storage, and installation fees which is also affected by area survey, sunlight analysis, roofing type, and elevation of the elevation.

However, the costs can range from Php 30,000 to Php 50,000 per kilowatt (kW) for residential solar panels, and Php 20,000 to Php 30,000 per kW for the commercial type.

As Google described, Solar API can help achieve this forecast as the program can minimize site visits required to manually measure the number of solar panel arrays to be installed thus reducing installation cost. It can also increase solar production estimate’s accuracy resulting in better efficiency and also speeds up the installation process.

Once Solar API is introduced in the Philippines, Filipinos may finally say goodbye to high electricity bills, have a more stable power grid, and reduce carbon emissions from traditional coal-powered energy plants.

With reports from Marvin Cabalhin