After listening to keynote speaker Ann Dunkin speak on how rapidly renewable energy is growing due to its low costs, we were genuinely surprised. Like many others, we had believed that renewable energy technologies would require tens of thousands of dollars to install and maintain, making it difficult for low-income households to gain access to these clean energy sources. Hearing Ann Dunkin challenge that assumption inspired us to research ways to reduce the costs of renewable power and create Solar Check, a tool that assists families with achieving energy independence.
Our project is an application created with Streamlit that collects relevant information from users and integrates the Google Gemini LLM API to provide guidance on building long-term energy resilience at the lowest cost. One of the main challenges we faced was incorporating the Gemini API into our web application. We faced issues with integrating the API into our Python code and hitting rate limits while testing. Despite these technical obstacles, we are proud of the product’s purpose. We believe that with further refinement, Solar Check can create a meaningful impact on people’s lives, as the main barrier to renewable energy adoption is not technology — it is access.
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