Oil and gas giant Total and Google develop tool to accelerate the deployment of photovoltaic solar panels on residential roofs

French energy giant Total and Google are launching a new artificial intelligence (AI) tool to help accelerate the rollout of residential photovoltaic solar panels. 200 jobs in Brazil were created through the deployment of photovoltaic solar energy

Read also

• Canada recruits Brazilians to fill more than 200 job vacancies; there is no age limit for applicants
• Contracts in Macaé, RJ and SP of the oil multinational Baker Hughes demand many job openings today, October 13
• Billionaire investment in Brazil in clean energy: British oil company BP bets on Brazilian ethanol and will invest more than 1 billion reais in sugarcane fields

Together, Google and Total have developed Solar Mapper, a tool that can provide accurate and fast estimates for the solar potential of homes using an entirely new AI algorithm.

The duo claims it can provide better results than similar tools due to the quality of the data extracted from the satellite images, the sharpness of the solar potential estimate, the relevance of the technology to be installed, and the global geographic coverage of the tool.

Solar Mapper is scheduled to launch in Europe initially, before going global. It can provide over 90% geographic coverage of France – Total's home market – encouraging more people to evaluate their home's solar potential.

“The Solar Mapper will allow Total to more quickly deploy solar panels on the roofs of homes in order to provide its customers with more affordable and affordable solar photovoltaic energy,” said Marie-Noëlle Séméria, Chief Technology Officer at Total.

“Combining Total's experience in photovoltaic solar energy with Google Cloud's experience in artificial intelligence and databases, we were able to develop an attractive and innovative offer in just 6 months.”

The tool will initially only be for residential buildings, but Total has said it intends to develop a version for industrial and commercial buildings in the future.

Total has the ambition to become a world leader in the production of renewable energy

The French energy giant said Solar Mapper is part of its ambition to "become a world leader in renewable energy production, with a view to achieving carbon neutrality by 2050".

This isn't the first tool Google has launched to assess the solar potential of properties, having brought its Sunroof platform to British homes alongside E.On in 2018.

Total said that around 40% of the group's investments are dedicated to 'low carbon energy'.