Nördnytt! 🤓Show HN: Helios – what plug-in solar could generate for any address in Britain
It uses UK government LIDAR data to reflect the actual skyline, so it knows whether there's a building or a hill blocking the sun.
Caveats: - Outside LIDAR coverage (most of Scotland and Wales) it falls back to a synthetic horizon (less accurate). - Trees and recent developments (post-2022 or so) may not be in the data, and some address placements could be off (geocoding via OSM).
Feedback on the shading model especially welcome.
- ltrg - 15717 sekunder sedanReally cool stuff. Nitpick: it failed to grab an OSM ID for my house and fell back to postcode centroid, but then still reported LIDAR-derived shading at quite high precision.
I'm wondering if it should fall back to a more general shading approach when no OSM building footprint is available, to avoid false precision? My street has a gap in the houses on the other side from mine, so picking the right location matters for the calculation.
You could also try Inspire Index polygons instead of OSM? These correspond to actual lease/freehold boundaries.
- ifh-hn - 8256 sekunder sedan> Worth it. The kit pays for itself in 7.1 years; over 20 years it's good for about £1,095 net.
This is my issue with this sort of thing. Am I going to have this kit in 7 years? Or would I upgrade to better stuff at the technology improves?
- redfloatplane - 18836 sekunder sedanHuh, TIL about the National LIDAR Programme: https://www.data.gov.uk/dataset/f0db0249-f17b-4036-9e65-3091...
Very interesting stuff and quite a large undertaking! I'm often impressed by the quality of the UK's open data.
- GordonS - 19447 sekunder sedanThis is really nice! Would be great if it could handle regular rooftop solar calculations too.
- dnlzro - 5226 sekunder sedanThis is a great use of open data!
Please consider making the source code available. I’d love to make something similar for your friends across the pond (in Canada).
- realty_geek - 12605 sekunder sedanNice. I'm working on a project called homestocompare to help people house-hunting in the UK.
Would be nice to add this as an extra data point when comparing. Are you open to collaborating at all?
- domh - 9816 sekunder sedanWould be good to be able to select multiple points on the compass and have it tell me the best place for it (front and back garden)
- IshKebab - 4071 sekunder sedanWhat if I already have solar, can I add this?
Also do you actually need a balcony or can you hang these out of a window somehow? Very few houses in the UK have balconies.
- toomuchtodo - 8217 sekunder sedanGreat work. Is it possible to use this dataset to calculate total plug in solar potential within the geographic constraint?