The City of Cambridge, Massachusetts has teamed up with MIT to create an interactive map which assesses solar power potential, allowing residents (and potential solar benefiters) to determine whether or not their address is a good solar power candidate – simply by typing an address into the state-of-the-art web system.

The website allows users to understand the benefits and issues associated with installing solar voltaic (PV) units in good-to-excellent locations, including:

• Size of installation
• Costs associated with installation
• Savings via Federal and State tax rebates
• Savings via yearly electricity production estimates
• Carbon and pollution diffusion assessments

The technology charts the amount of electricity that could be generated over the course of the year and ranks the houses as having excellent, good, poor and no solar potential.

Cambridge Solar Tool