Excuse Me, Is that Solar Panel Pointing in the Right Direction?

Excuse me, is that solar panel pointing in the right direction?

On a bright morning, graduate student Jeremy Klotz and professor Shree Nayar walked through upper Manhattan with a tall tripod and a camera that takes 360-degree images. Their route took them to bike docking stations, which ...

Forecasting solar irradiance in urban environments with just one 360° image

U.S. scientists have developed a method to forecast solar irradiance at any location using a single high-resolution hemispherical image captured on-site. By extracting sky, sun, and surrounding scene information from visual cues, the approach enables accurate long-term energy prediction without relying on detailed 3D city models.Researchers at Columbia University in the United States have createa a new technique to measure solar irradiance at an…

Single Photo System Forecasts Solar Panel Output and Reveals Orientation Losses in Urban Settings

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Apr 23, 2026 A computer vision system developed at Columbia Engineering can determine how much energy a solar panel will generate over a year - and how much more it could generate if repositioned - using nothing more than a single 360-degree photograph taken from the panel's location. Graduate student Jeremy Klotz and professor Shree Nayar, T.C. Chang Professor of Computer Science at Columbia Engineeri