solarQuote

Inspiration

In Africa, getting a reliable solar quote takes 1 week and 3 different vendors. As students, we saw families and small businesses give up on solar because it was too confusing and slow. We built solarQuote to make clean energy accessible in 2 minutes.

What it does

solarQuote is an instant solar quotation tool.

1. User enters monthly bill, roof size, and location
2. solarQuote calculates: number of panels needed, total system cost, estimated savings, and ROI
3. It generates a downloadable quote PDF tailored to African sunlight data Goal: Help households and installers across Africa make faster, data-driven solar decisions.

How we built it

We built an MVP web app using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript for the frontend. For calculations: we used average solar irradiance data for Africa + local panel and battery prices in USD/FCFA. We followed the Software Development track and deployed the code on GitHub. No backend needed for the hackathon demo.

Challenges we ran into

1. Data: Finding accurate and local solar pricing data for multiple African countries
2. Time: 7 days is short to build a calculator + UI + documentation
3. Simplicity: Making complex solar math understandable for non-technical users

Accomplishments that we're proud of

1. Built a working prototype that generates a full quote in under 2 minutes
2. Designed the tool to be adaptable for different African countries and currencies
3. Completed a full Devpost submission in 1 week as a student team

What we learned

1. How to translate a real-world problem into a simple product
2. How to scope an MVP that judges can actually test
3. The importance of local data in cleantech solutions for Africa

What's next for solarQuote

1. AI Integration: Use Gemini API to explain the quote in plain language
2. Installer Network: Connect users directly to verified solar installers across Africa
3. Mobile App: Offline version for areas with poor internet

Built With

• africa
• app
• calculator
• cleantech
• css
• energy
• github
• hackathon
• html
• javascript
• renewable
• solar
• web