Solar Roof Prospects: roofs, savings, payback, emails

Find the businesses in any city whose roofs are worth putting solar on, and know what to say before you call. For each business this Actor measures the roof from the map, sizes a solar system to what that kind of business typically uses, estimates yearly power from satellite solar data, works out the bill saving, cost and payback, finds the business email on its own website, scores the roof as a lead, and writes a branded one-page estimate and a ready-to-send first email.

• 🏭 Roofs that matter: manufacturers, warehouses, food producers and cold storage, supermarkets and large stores, car dealers, hotels, gyms, offices
• 📐 Roof size from the real building outline (OpenStreetMap), drawn on the one-page estimate
• ☀️ Yearly power for that exact spot from PVGIS satellite solar data (EU Joint Research Centre)
• 💵 Bill saving, installed cost, payback and 25-year saving, using US business power prices by state (EIA) or your own price
• 🧠 Smart lead score: right system size for a small or mid installer, payback, daytime power use, independent owner (chains skipped), owner-occupied building (shared plazas skipped), roofs that already have solar skipped
• 📧 Business email from the company's own website, mail server checked, never jobs@ or billing@. Businesses with no website on the map get one looked up by name, kept only if the site mentions their city, state or phone
• 📄 Branded one-page estimates for your best-fit roofs (set how many with Maximum estimate pages; default 1) and ✍️ a ready-to-send email with the numbers and your booking link
• 🗺️ Map of all roofs with size, saving and score

Example (real run, Fresno, California, October 2026; numbers are estimates)

Business type	Roof	System	Yearly saving	Payback after 30% credit
Custom closet manufacturer	30,400 sq ft	252 kW	~$79,200	~4.2 years
Electronics manufacturer	24,400 sq ft	201 kW	~$63,500	~4.2 years
Auto electric workshop	48,700 sq ft	251 kW	~$65,400	~5.1 years
Refrigeration wholesaler	30,200 sq ft	101 kW (sized to its use, not the whole roof)	~$22,600	~6.0 years

168 business roofs found in Fresno; chains, shared buildings and roofs under 600 m² skipped; 12 prospects with a business email and a score of 60+.

How to use it

1. Enter a city or area (e.g. "Fresno, California") and pick the business types.
2. Keep the defaults or set your installed cost per watt, tax credit and, outside the US, your electricity price and currency.
3. Add your branding and booking link, set the maximum prospects, click Start.
4. Download the roofs (Excel, CSV, JSON). Each row has the email draft; the best-fit rows also have the one-page estimate link. Open the map from the Output tab.

How the estimate works (and its limits)

• Roof: area of the building outline on OpenStreetMap. About 60% of a flat roof (40% of other roofs) is treated as usable, at 150 W per m² (rows of modern panels with spacing and walkways).
• System size: the smaller of what fits the roof and ~90% of the yearly power a business of that type and size typically uses (US CBECS averages).
• Power: PVGIS yearly output for fixed panels at this location (10° tilt on flat roofs).
• Saving: the share of solar power a business of that type uses on site, valued at 75% of the average business power price (bills include demand charges solar does not fully remove). Exported power and future price rises count as zero, so savings are on the careful side.
• Cost: your cost per watt, a little higher for small systems and lower for big ones. US federal credit default 30%: it generally needs the system in service by 31 December 2027; eligibility depends on the project.
• Map coverage varies by city: a business is included only when its building outline is mapped. Big cities and counties give the most roofs. Every number is a first estimate; confirm with a site visit and real bills.

Output fields

name, category, address, city, state, website, bestEmail, bestEmailType, emailDomainAcceptsMail, phone, roofAreaM2, roofLikelyFlat, buildingType, floors, businessesInBuilding, roofFitsKwp, estimatedSystemKwp, panels, yieldKwhPerKwp, estimatedYearlyUseKwh, yearlyKwh, electricityPrice, priceSource, yearlySaving, costPerWatt, estimatedCost, taxCreditPercent, costAfterCredit, paybackYears, saving25Years, co2TonsPerYear, fitScore, fitLabel, fitReasons, solarPageUrl, emailSubject, emailBody, latitude, longitude, osmUrl.

Pricing

Pay per event, no subscription. Roofs that fail your filters are free.

Event	Price
Roof prospect (sizing, saving, payback, lead score, contact, email draft)	$0.10
One-page solar estimate, up to Maximum estimate pages	$0.50
Map of all roofs, once per run, if on	$0.50

Examples:

• Default run (5 roofs, 1 estimate page, map): 5 × $0.10 + $0.50 + $0.50 = $1.50
• 50 roofs with 10 estimate pages and the map: $10.50

Runs are paid from your Apify balance; the free plan's $5 monthly credit covers a few default runs. Use Maximum cost per run in the run options to set a hard cap.

Good use

Business data comes from OpenStreetMap and each company's own public website; emails are business addresses the company publishes. Use the results for relevant business-to-business outreach with your real address and an easy opt-out, and stop when asked. Data: © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL); PVGIS © European Union; US electricity prices: EIA.

More tools from translucent_wire

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Local Business Leads	Local businesses by type and city: email, website gaps, fit score, audit pages, map
Hiring Signals to Proposals	Companies hiring for a role your service can do: tasks covered, saving, email, proposal page
GeoRisk Site Screener	Flood, contamination, climate, EUDR forest and solar risk for any site or plot, A-F grades + report
EUDR Plot File Fixer	Fix GeoJSON/KML/CSV/Shapefile plot files so the EU Information System accepts them

Use it from an AI assistant (MCP)

Add Apify's MCP server to Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor or any MCP client and this Actor becomes a tool your assistant can run:

{"mcpServers": {"apify": {"url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=translucent_wire/solar-roof-prospects"}}}

AI agents without an Apify account can also run it and pay per run in USDC through Apify's x402 support.