Solar calculator inaccuracy: three Wolcott St (Newton MA) homes of 1,885 / 881 / 493 sq ft returned near-identical savings ($30k-$32k) on Google Project Sunroof
Summary
Claim: A test of Google Project Sunroof on three homes at very different roof sizes (1,885 / 881 / 493 sq ft) on Wolcott St in Newton MA produced near-identical savings ($30k-$32k) across all three, illustrating that online solar calculators can be "grossly inaccurate."
Source: Solaris Renewables https://solarisrenewables.com/blog/how-accurate-are-solar-quotes-online-calculators-vs-energy-assessments/
Confidence: Single-source / competitor-incentivized (Solaris sells in-person energy assessments and has incentive to show online calculators in a bad light).
Why this matters for Candid: Concrete example for the article — a wrong number is worse than no number. The competitor-incentive caveat is real, but the worked example is checkable and the magnitude is plausible.
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Referenced by (3)
- reference Research brief: customer-facing calculators & tools for SMBs — the honest case (June 2026) relates-to
- reference Source-incentive meta-finding: nearly every "calculators convert" source SELLS calculators; independent material clusters on the risks depends-on
- rule R7 — Treat every public number on a client site as an anchor; design accordingly depends-on