Predict how much solar power your house could generate

The fact that the rise of alternative energy and the rise of Google Earth are happening at the same time has let to a lot of great Google Earth visualizations of potential alternative energy use, particular with solar power. We’ve seen a 3D rendering of the solar panels at the Googleplex and the US Solar Jobs Map, which shows the potential for hundreds of thousands of new solar-related jobs in the next few years.

We also showed you the Berlin Solar Atlas Project, which allows you to view the “solar potential” for over 14,000 roofs in the city. Today’s story is very similar, but on a much wider (though less detailed) scale.

Coming from the University of California – San Diego is the “California Solar Irradiance Map“, which shows the entire state of California and the amount of energy a horizontally oriented solar panel could expect to receive over the course of a year.

ca-solar.jpg

Beyond the overview map that you see above, you can zoom down and get specific data for thousands of individual points on the map, the most important of which is likely the “monthly mean irradiation” that shows how much energy could be generated at different times of the year.

ca-solar-detail.jpg

To try it for yourself, download their KMZ file and give it a shot. To see the individual placemarks, be sure to turn on the “Placemark Data” folder inside of the KMZ.

Google Places Tidbits and Quirks

1. Top Contributor EHG reported in the Google Places forums yesterday that the “Report a Problem” Link has disappeared from the bottom of your Google Places Page. It is still MIA this AM:

2. Some readers reported here and on Twitter that Google was no longer allowing them to verify via phone and could only verify by postcards. When I attempted to do so yesterday, I was allowed to verify by postcard. Several possibilities:
– Google is becoming more stringent on who is allowed to phone verify in an effort to increase trust level
– Google is changing the procedure to post card verification only and certain users are seeing the changes first

Are you experiencing this limitation?

3. Several Twitter commenters (@mktgbill (Bill Allen), @DavidKyle & @KiwiMarketing) noted that they were seeing “a shift to the 7 pack + organic and away from Places/Organic mix?” As Matt McGee has pointed out there has been no discernible rhyme or reason as to which shows when and there is an increasing variety of displays. It has been so volatile that I just haven’t lost any sleep over it. I have not been tracking specific search results either so I can’t verify the observations.

Are you seeing more old style 7-Packs showing?

4. TripAdvisor Reviews are reported as once again missing in action by readers and posters to the forums. For those of you that missed the Google TripAdvisor Kerfuffle in December see this article.

Let Your Hotpot Friends Help You Search on Google Maps

Most of us know lots of friends, each with very different areas of expertise when it comes to places to recommend. With the recent launch of Hotpot, we made it easy for you to see your friends’ ratings and reviews listed right inside search results.

While this is really helpful, and we’ve had a lot of fun with it, we often found ourselves wanting to see all recommendations by a particular friend for a particular search. Problem solved, thanks to a simple new feature we cooked up.

Say I’m searching on Google Maps for “italian restaurants” in New York. I’d probably trust my buddy Octavian’s recommendations over Bernhard’s (who is more of a hamburger guy, really). Now all I have to do, to see Octavian’s entire list of Italian restaurant recommendations in the city, is click on his name when he pops up in my initial search; this filters my search results to only those he’s rated and shows them on the map. It’s like I’m seeing the world, through Octavian’s eyes.

Getting a hand from a friend is even more helpful when I’m on the go. So now I can do the same thing in Google Maps for mobile on Android; clicking on Octavian’s name in my search results filters to show only his recommendations.

Add your friends (at least those with good taste) on Hotpot and encourage them to rate so you can explore their recommendations when you search on Google Maps.