Meet the environment APIs

foreign [Music] super excited to have you guys here to tell you a little bit more about what's happening in Google Maps platform hope you had a good keynote down below or wandering through the sessions we also have some demos down below so hopefully you get a chance to see that um so I'm Celine van Gran I'm a product manager on the Google Maps platform in the Geo sustainability team I'm joined by a few of my colleagues here I've been with Google for nine years I've been building impact focused action-oriented sustainability products for those years and this is the culmination of some of our products that we're gonna going to show you today so I'll tell you a little bit about the environmental category then we will spend a little bit of time on the apis themselves and we'll have a little bit of time for questions so let me start with Google sustainability Google's been focused on sustainability for a long time especially in our operations being the first company in 2007 to become fully carbon neutral to creating you know buying the largest corporate renewable energy purchase in 2019 to our current 24 7 carbon free goals which are Super ambitious this work not only leads the industry but it really helps Drive larger systems change and when you know you think of Google's expertise and our mission it's really about making information accessible and useful for better decision making and So within sustainability at Google we really think of it as three pillars of course on our operations as I mentioned but there's also how do we Empower individuals how do we Empower our partners which is why a lot of you might be here today so addressing climate change is really an information problem in many ways in fact in a report that we commissioned in 2022 we found that 20 to 25 percent of all of the initiatives that the EU needs to do to reach their deep decarbonization goals have some form of digital enablement there and for individuals and our partners really to drive that positive action for our planet it really means you know we need to access the billions of users that use our products every day with things like eco-friendly routing air quality monitoring or putting the carbon number next to Google Flights and then the flights that people are purchasing it also means building new tools and platforms so in 2010 we launched Google Earth engine a geospatial analysis platform really to look at environmental monitoring in 2018 we launched the environmental insights Explorer tool focused on bringing actionable data and insights for thousands of cities around the world but what's really important here is that right now consumers are interested in sustainability more than ever before in 2022 searches for electric vehicles electric bicycles solar energy reached all-time highs and people around the world are really interested in you know what how do I live more sustainably what's going on here and that's spurred on by of course extreme weather events local pollution new incentive programs it's also by the kind of critical mass of friends and families and neighbors who have either had some impact associated with climate change or maybe have seen the benefits of sustainable behaviors and Technologies and so now really more than ever before this is the time when it makes sense for businesses to offer solutions to Consumers that can help inform and enable those sustainable choices enter Google Maps platform Google Maps platform is really about providing the information to developers based on the most up-to-date accurate and constantly evolving understanding of the real world it's GMP enables organizations to create amazing geospatial experiences you've probably seen Google Maps in a lot of different places for their users based on the trusted information that we've been building within Google Maps for decades and so when you combine these two one Google's long-standing commitment to sustainability and GMP Google Maps platform is a developer platform that's why we're super excited to launch the environment category in GMP this is really our first step towards making GMP Google Maps platform we'll keep using that acronym the leading destination for developers to access unique hyper local sustainability and climate data and insights and today that's where we are launching three new apis solar API air quality and pollen that you'll hear a little bit more about today these products apply Ai and machine learning to environment data to give businesses helpful information that can inform consumers daily behaviors that can help inform purchasing decisions and can make businesses operate more uh more efficiently right reduce the time and cost of doing business and GMP of course offers the reliability and scale for develop for supporting developers around the world it offers really an ideal platform for us to bring to partner with developers and bring that information to bear that will ultimately help us address climate change so let me dive a little bit deeper into solar itself that's the product I've been working on for a number of years the opportunity of course I have to say this for solar is brighter than ever really residential and commercial solar in the last year makes up 50 percent of all the expected growth in solar in 2023 and in 2024 the International Energy agency predicts that 100 over 150 gigawatts of solar energy will be installed that is tens of millions of systems around the world and that's really fueled by policy makers who are setting this great policy environment through incentive programs especially here in the US and Europe and and you know it helps get you know solars easy to install it happens really quick and it reduces the energy cost burden for individual building owners so what is you know what is this API itself what we did is we took high quality imagery and Maps data we use AI models to analyze that imagery to understand the details about the individual roofs including the slope obstructions shade patterns and then we add in weather to understand what is the solar potential what how much solar energy will be produced by those rooftops and so we can we in the API we return it in two different formats one is the raw data the raw data is an imagery layer so you can see the actual house that you're going to be putting solar on it we give you a DSM a digital surface model which is an elevation a pitch and shape of the roof itself as well as flux so sunniness and shade values across the entire year for that building and then we digest those insights and we also produce another endpoint which is really about the insights of the building and solar potential for a specific building that you you might be querying and this I'll tell you a little bit more about why that's important but this is key solar information really at this like I need to need a quick hit what is the solar potential of this building so the API is based on what we learned from the project sunroof tool that we launched in 2015 is a consumer face tool that has helped countless homeowners around the world understand whether solar is right for them and we're working with industry Partners over the last few years to understand what they needed to really accelerate their businesses Drive customer trust and ultimately deploy more solar so with our expanded coverage with the data and imagery that you need to create accurative accurate and competitive solar proposals we hope this increases your conversions reduces your number of site visits and decreases your site design times for solar installations the API was designed to support use cases across the entire solar installation funnel from customer awareness to acquisition to panel layout to design and installation guides you can use the API to support specific buildings but a specific building in front of a customer and say this is your roof this is you know these are the panels on your roof you know solar is right for you you can take that down a level and put a distinct quote together that says this is you need seven panels on your roof to and they're going to be on this corner of the roof you can create designs there and then you can create installation guides as well so you can use the raw solar data to really say okay here's my installers you need to go to this part of the roof it's this tall then you bring that ladder with them so it's everything from I have a portfolio of buildings which one's right for solar we can do that and it's down to the level of I need to put panels where that's what we're really excited about with with this tool so the solar API we're excited to launch it to 40 countries covering 320 million buildings this coverage supports businesses and customers at scale helps you provide it gives you the ability to expand your business into new markets we're not done though we know new buildings are coming up all the time we know that they're interested in distributed solar on residential commercial roofs is not limited to these countries and we're super excited to hear more about what is needed in the world how do we how do we help accelerate solar installers even more so if you have ideas I'm here to listen to those but to tell you a little bit more about solar and how it's being used by one of our customers I want to introduce us thank you thank you Celine thank you for having me here um my name is and I will tell a story about closing Gap but that's what we've been doing the last couple of years but we're on a mission to help the European Union to achieve Montero peak of installed capacity in 2030. that's our mission that's what we're working on and we're doing since 2009. to explain that I have two short stories one about how we grew our company over the last couple of years and the other about the complexity of the energy market and what it means we started in 2009 a couple of my colleagues they looked at certain problems in the spatial planning area and they also saw a question about solar and they looked at what kind of data was available full available and how they could use that and they saw there was laser scanning data lidar data which is translated now into a DSM model and they saw building boundary data and he started thinking about it and he had the intuition they could build something of it and it started with a first algorithm and for one building it took over a week to calculate it well the end result was great but a week then already was too much so they started improving improving and in 2010 we got to the point that we could calculate a complete City within a week and share the results of that in a solar map to a municipality or city so that the the inhabitants could see what the potential of the roof was that was the first start the main issue was that we needed to have data the data was not available it was always only available through a governmental agency took a lot of time a lot of effort so we started looking for other source of data and in 2014 there was a big moment the European Union had a legislation that made sure that every country would be able should be able to provide the open data there were two countries who did that the Netherlands and Denmark and we had some great results with that and then we started waiting waiting waiting for the other countries to follow didn't happen and then Google sunroof project was the next thing first step for us because we saw that that's another alternative we already had reference data sets which we could use to validate the date of Google and we saw that it was good for what we wanted to do so we started with projects in Germany and the UK doing the same thing again then again before a lot more data became available it took a lot of time so some of the countries in the EU gave data available but still not enough and then in 2022 the discussion with Google started again and they decided the Google son of project will become a commercial product which was a great decision for Google but also for us in the end and that led to us launching the Montero Peak initiative this year at intersol air Munich big solar Invention Convention the other story is about the solar market and but um I already had solar panels on my roof in 1996. I don't know who if you have solar panels on the roof can you raise your hand so still still a lot of people to convert to using solar that's great um um when I bought my house in 1996 it had already solar panels only because it was part of the deal so it was not that difficult to buy them what you see here is the blue line is the complexity of the market in it and during the last couple of years the complexity increased a lot so new products without batteries whether the heat pumps with it um if you look at for instance the energy contracts that you can get so the complexity is but it's growing a lot and the other thing people trusted the energy Market it was easy to understand and that trust declined very fast to the point where there is now a gap between the complexity of the market and the trust that people have in that market and that's what we're closing we're closing that Gap that's for trying to establish and I have to click through this yes um another part is what we saw that if the blue line is what kind of data is necessary to give good advice to consumers or to businesses um the initiative in the Nellis and Denmark made it possible to advise those countries really well and what's possible in the other countries it was really difficult over small data sets a lot of work to to do the data quality checks with the availability of the Google solar API that becomes a lot more easy for us to do so we can close the gap now at this moment but only at this moment Saleem already said new buildings will come new Solutions will be there so it is a challenge to keep ahead of the trust versus complexity of the challenge that we're facing that's the two stories that converge what we have done over the years is we have created solutions for governments to educate on the potential of solar but also for commercial companies to help raise the conversion of their sales processes those are the really important things that we've done and we're doing that with now with the new Google solar API far better faster than ever before this is what we have achieved so far in Europe and we're really proud of that that we have achieved that that's really something that every time we look at this figures we say wow but it's still not enough if you look in the room how many people already have solar panels it's not enough you have to be more send them what do we have from technical perspective we we know of each roof part the Tilt the orientation we know the size and we use that to estimate scenarios what is the best option for your energy consumption or your future energy consumptions um we know what objects are in the neighborhood and we can use that to calculate how much Shadow there will be and how much actually the radiation will hit the roof parts we know we can create online real-time the first indication of a solar plant is used in whether it's an educational purposes and also in commercial situations to help to give the the fuel and understanding what is possible we know the height and the height of the lowest roof part and also of the highest rule part the lowest Row part is really important to understand what's the height of the safety meshes that you need to take into account safety measures are really necessary but also very costly so explaining that to an installer is really important we know about the the situation around the building which is important if you look at from the perspective of the individual who wants to buy a solar plant explaining this is your house this is what the Shader will do and this is what the potential installation can be helps them into making the decision to buy a solar plant and again these two stories now convert what we're trying to do every day every week is make sure that we close the gap between complexity and trust and make sure that that our customers with our municipalities which are the commercial companies which are individuals use that data to start using Renewables and that's for me thank you for now thank you boss so from here we're going to switch to the other apis we're launching today to tell you more I'd like to introduce Ron korber an environmental engineer who's also the director of product thank you Celia according to the world of organization air pollution is among the greatest environmental health risk which we face today which accounts for more than 7 million premature death every year also due to climate change there is an increase in going phenomenon of other environmental hazards such as wildfires and pollen this all creates a huge Healthcare cost and according to the World Bank the cost of air pollution alone is more than 8 trillion dollar annually in current times when health and climate change is top of mind for individuals businesses and authorities every consumer experience every product and every business process must become climate over and climate resilient which is why we are very excited to introduce the neural quality API and the new ipolling API as part of the new environmental category on Google Maps platform alongside with solar API this is all part of Google commitment making reliable relevant environmental data available to the masses with the newer quality API in the new pollen API we don't only provide accurate data but also heat map capabilities as well as recommendations on how to reduce exposure and yes this can all be available with easily to integrate apis which can be used on every new or current business applications or websites let me tell you more about what is available via the apis air quality is a new capability that provides current and historical data the air quality apis provide granular air quality data to help innovate your product and style your map in order to visualize air pollution exposure this enables people to understand the air they are within and make an informed decision such as choosing the right park the cleanest Park to take the children outside limiting out of stay or choose where and when to do other activity key features include real-time air quality index which is hourly air quality information available in over 100 countries at an astonishing resolution of 500 meter or 1600 feet resolution also available is a very intuitive air pollution map which is color-coded representation of the air that we breed we also provide other features such as health tips and recommendation which are hundreds of recommendations on how to avoid exposure based on seven population segments for example recommendation for asthma patients COPD patients athletes and more moving on to Poland polon is a natural phenomenon which also have a significant health cost on society with over 400 million seasonal allergy suffers globally in a world where Paul encounts are rising and Poland season are getting longer and at the same time aren't predictable there is an increase in demand for accurate pollen forecast therefore the Poland API is a new capability based on very Advanced models that calculate the pollen index for three Poland types and for up to 15 pollen plant species this is available on a one by one kilometer Square Grid in 65 countries and yes just like the air quality API Poland iopi also include heat map capabilities which you can display on top of your Google Maps a variety of Industry the pollen and air quality apis and those Industries include Smart Home Healthcare Mobility travel government media and big Tech real estate insurance and more and I will be happy to give you a couple of examples in the healthcare market for example the Mongol customers are medical companies and pharmaceutical companies for seasonal allergy suffers there are good news because there are treatment that can be efficient in order to prevent or avoid related symptoms however this are mostly efficient if taken before allergic symptoms start so among the use cases there are apps that provide alerts for seasonal allergy suffers so for example if we see that pollen count might be high it's a user location according to a forecast these apps will run this user this patient in order for him to make informed decision on how to reduce exposure for example closing the windows at his home or even use his personal preventative medicine it is also no surprise that exposure to air pollution during our daily commute might have a negative impact on our health so therefore in the mobility and automotive industry air quality important data allow for more informed driving decisions passenger and drivers can use the data to find alternative route to reduce exposure they can also make other informed decisions such as turn on the in-cabin air purifier in Del column the air quality in Poland API can be easily integrated into the car HMI as well as a driver companion app so the driver can make sure the car is prepared and optimized before the Journey Begins next Emil Fisher director of research and Engineering at Google will elaborate more on the unique Dynamic of air pollution and how we are able to provide accurate environmental data Emil thanks okay thanks Juan so hi everybody okay so people sometimes wrongly assume that they are exposed to pollution only when they are located to uh really next to a pollution Source such as if they are next to a busy traffic jam or you know or a wildfire but actually the reality is a bit different people it can be also exposed to flower pollution sources such as dust storms that can travel great distance and can cause oceans and even continents Okay so you can see here time lapse video presentation of the air quality changes in the Bay Area you can see how where how their quality changes you know from one street to another and and and of course you can see the colors the colors represents a green represents gooder quality which is healthy for everybody yellow represents a moderated air quality which can be harmful for sensitive groups just like you know asthma patients and red represents better quality which is harmful for everybody even for short exposure of times less than one hour as you can see the air quality changes dramatically from one street to another from a from one hour hour to another and and from good to bed so as you can see this is very this is also very challenging to map the pollution at your exact location and and and and there are several reasons for that one is delays in reporting and also a coverage between sensors cool so to resolve this to resolve this challenge we are using sophisticated algorithms and and what we're doing we are fusing multiple data layers we are taking we are taking traffic information we are taking weather conditions different models we are using a fire smoke models Etc to calculate the pollution in more than 100 countries in a resolution as well mentioned of around 500 meters which is around 1600 feet this unique approach enables us to provide information even when one of the data sources is unavailable we calculate the pollution in around 500 million geographical locations around the world in those locations we calculate the pollution of the pollutant concentrations of billions of different pollutant concentration types SPM 2.5 PM tens and and others and overall we digest terabytes of data and we also support more than 70 different air quality indexes basically those are official governmental Global air quality indexes that we can provide anywhere also a similar approach we are taking with the Poland modeling or Poland forecasting we use Infuse multiple data layers such as land cover and total production per pollen type and climate data and then we are able to provide meaningful information such as pollen index which is a universal and Global pollen index we can also provide exposure exposure risks actionable insights and heat Maps so you're asking yourself why now so according to the World Health Organization air pollution is one of the biggest environmental health risks this is why the who took a bold action and in the first time in 16 years they reduced their air pollution thresholds and updated their guidelines this creates a lot of sense of urgency among governments companies and people and also the news coverage about air pollution pollen and wildfires change drastically and there are now as you see everywhere also we see that many world leaders and the CEOs of large companies they'll focused themselves on on realizing sustainability so I'm really excited to announce the general availability of our new air quality and pollen apis as part of our new also environmental product Suite available via Google maps platform if your company is looking to bring real value to your users to increase brand loyalty and trust and increase engagement and help your communities so their quality and polling apis were created exactly for that to support multiple business segments across many health related use cases that again to bring real value to your users thank you

2023-12-28 01:13

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