BASE quality data generally available in limited APAC regions

BASE-quality data coverage (defined as API requests made with requiredQuality=BASE where corresponding responses with imagery_quality: BASE) is available for residential building areas in the following regions: Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Malaysia, and Taiwan. Solar API calls requesting BASE quality data for locations in these regions are billed at the standard rate.

For more details, see the Solar API coverage map.

BASE quality data generally available in limited LATAM regions

BASE-quality data coverage (defined as API requests made with requiredQuality=BASE where corresponding responses with imagery_quality: BASE) is available for residential building areas in the following regions: Argentina, Chile, and Mexico. Solar API calls requesting BASE quality data for locations in these regions are billed at the standard rate.

BASE quality data is experimental elsewhere. To learn more about requesting BASE quality data, see Expanded Coverage (Experimental).

Announcement

Expanded Solar API coverage

Medium-quality data coverage (requests made with requiredQuality=MEDIUM and corresponding responses with imagery_quality: 'MEDIUM') has been expanded to cover new areas in the Netherlands.

For more details, see the Solar API coverage map.

BASE quality data generally available in limited LATAM regions

A new BASE ImageryQuality tier is now available for usage in GA. BASE ImageryQuality describes solar data that is derived from enhanced satellite imagery processed at 0.25 m/pixel.

BASE-quality data coverage (defined as API requests made with requiredQuality=BASE where corresponding responses with imagery_quality: BASE) is available for residential building areas in the following regions: Brazil, Puerto Rico, Peru, Colombia. Solar API calls requesting BASE quality data for locations in these regions are billed at the standard rate.

BASE quality data is experimental elsewhere. To learn more about requesting BASE quality data, see Expanded Coverage (Experimental).

2025 Solar API Data Refresh

The Solar API is releasing a worldwide refresh of its data and models with improvements to support more buildings with fresher and higher quality insights:

• Better quality DSMs, roof segments, and building footprints. Using a new model in collaboration with Google DeepMind, we have increased the precision of building and obstacle heights, which straightens ridgelines, smooths planar segments, and reduces artifacts. We have also significantly improved roof segmentation and building footprint detection. These changes support better solar panel alignments and the design of solar arrays on roofs for the wide area coverage available in "Medium" resolution imagery.

• Higher building coverage with fresher building data. We have refreshed our source basemap to use the latest Google Maps building data. The new building data adds support for tens of millions of additional buildings, significantly increasing Solar API geographic coverage, especially in areas outside of the US. This ensures that the Solar API has up-to-date information on buildings around the world, and removes many non-building structures that could interfere with API calls for nearby buildings.

• Improved energy modeling. We are now applying a newer, more accurate model to determine energy usage for buildings, including hourly panel performance and building energy demand across the US. This expands on functionality initially released in 2024 for California to support NEM 3.0 net metering models.

Expanded Solar API coverage

Medium-quality data coverage (requests made with requiredQuality=MEDIUM and corresponding responses with imagery_quality: 'MEDIUM') has been expanded to cover new areas in Japan, Philippines, and Mexico.

For more details, see the Solar API coverage map.

Panel Dimensions and Capacity Update

Panel dimensions and capacity have been updated to match industry standards. The following changes are:

• Panel height (meters): 1.65 → 1.879
• Panel width (meters): 0.992 → 1.045
• Panel capacity (watts): 250 → 400

We recommend that you continue to get these values from the panelCapacityWatts, panelHeightMeters, and panelWidthMeters fields of the buildingInsights.findClosest response.

Announcement

Utility Incentives and Utility Electricity Rates Update

United States utility incentive data and utility electricity rates have been updated using data from Clean Power Research. You can access the new utility incentive amounts for each building in the UtilityIncentive field of the buildingInsights.findClosest response. The utility electricity rates are not surfaced in the API but are used in calculations for the following fields of the buildingInsights.findClosest response:

• leasingSavings

• cashPurchaseSavings

• financedPurchaseSavings

• costOfElectricityWithoutSolar

• remainingLifetimeUtilityBill

• solarPercentage

• percentageExportedToGrid

Announcement

Exact Quality Parameter

Users can now specify the exact quality of data layers they would like returned. dataLayers.get has a new parameter called exactQualityRequired. When it is set to true, the quality indicated by the requiredQuality field will be returned if available. Otherwise, exactQualityRequired is set to false by default. In this case, the endpoints will behave normally and return the highest quality available data.

Expanded Solar API coverage

Medium-quality data coverage (requests made with requiredQuality=MEDIUM and corresponding responses with imagery_quality: 'MEDIUM') has been expanded to cover new areas in the following regions: Hawaii, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Puerto Rico, The Bahamas, Antigua and Barbados.

For more details, see the Solar API coverage map.

Expanded Solar API coverage

Medium-quality data coverage (requests made with requiredQuality=MEDIUM and corresponding responses with imagery_quality: 'MEDIUM') has been expanded to cover new areas in the following countries: Australia, Belgium, Czechia, Denmark, Greece, Finland, Ireland, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, New Zealand.

For more details, see the Solar API coverage map.

Expanded Solar API coverage

Medium-quality data coverage (requests made with requiredQuality=MEDIUM and corresponding responses with imagery_quality: 'MEDIUM') has been expanded to cover new areas in the following 21 states in the US: AK, AL, CO, DE, IA, KS, ME, MN, MO, MT, ND, NE, NM, OR, RI, SD, UT, VT, WI, WA, and WY.

For more details, see the Solar API coverage map.

Expanded Solar API coverage

Medium-quality data coverage (requests made with requiredQuality=MEDIUM and corresponding responses with imagery_quality: 'MEDIUM') has been expanded to cover new areas in the following regions:

• United States: AR, AZ, CT, DC, GA, ID, IN, KY, LA, MD, MI, MS, NC, NH, NJ, NY, NV, OH, OK, PA, SC, TN, VA, WV
• Canada
• Poland
• Austria
• Switzerland

For more details, see the Solar API coverage map.

Expanded Solar API coverage

Medium-quality data coverage (requests made with requiredQuality=MEDIUM and corresponding responses with imagery_quality: 'MEDIUM') now includes most of California, Texas, Massachusetts, and Illinois. For more information, see the Solar API coverage map.

Solar API

Announcing the General Availability (GA) release of the Solar API. See the Release Notes for information about this release and for all other releases.

If you are a new user, see Set Up in the Google Cloud Console to start the installation process.