myHelios

Inspiration

There is a need for an educated market when it comes to the solar industry. Since it is still a relatively new technology, many people do not understand its costs and benefits. myHelios helps to give a background on solar power's costs and benefits and informs people of its potential for them

How it works

myHelios uses the specific location of an individual as well as desired solar project size. The app is then able to give an estimated kWh generated on a monthly and yearly basis for a solar photovoltaic project. It also shows the monetary value of the generated electricity, the payback time of the project, and the CO2 emissions avoided. myHelios also has the ability to to show the energy generated and money saved for a solar thermal project, depending on the number of people living in the user's household.

Challenges I ran into

One challenge we faced was figuring out the best way to analyze a user's roof space. While finding an average may be possible, the range is so huge that an average could be inaccurate in many cases. Our solution to this was to give a number of project sizes for the user to choose from based on their estimate of roof size.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

Our website and app are both great! We are all proud of our product and how far its come in such a short time.

What I learned

We learned that the team needs to have members with different backgrounds and skill sets. No single member could complete the app by themselves. We all learned a bit about the others' discipline areas.

What's next for myHelios

The next step is to come up with a way to estimate roof square footage, so the user only needs to enter their address before myHelios comes up with an accurate estimate for their specific roof. As for the business side of myHelios, the next step is to partner with different solar companies who's websites would be linked from the final output screen on the app.