Bristol residents can now estimate whether their house is suitable for solar panels at the click of a button.

The city council has become the first local authority in the country to produce a solar map of this scale. Residents can view the map on the council's website, which uses colour coding to illustrate an estimate of each buildings potential for solar generation.

By typing in their address, the user will be provided with more detailed information including the estimated system size, electricity generation and associated CO2 savings.

Council Leader Barbara Janke, said: "This is another example of Bristol leading the way on the green agenda. We're the first local authority to produce a solar map, the first to be building our own wind turbines and the first local authority outside London to be setting up our own energy services company.

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"The work we’ve done on the solar map pulls together a full picture of the city’s solar potential. Anyone who lives in Bristol who is thinking about the possibility of installing solar electric or hot water panels can use this map quickly and easily to find out whether it’s going to be viable for them.

"Together with our other ambitious projects, it will help support Bristol’s growing environmental technologies sector providing a boost for jobs."

Key findings from the map estimate that around a third - approximately 80,000 - of all rooftops in Bristol are suitable for solar generation. If all of these roofs had solar panels installed on them, they would cover an area equivalent to 600 football pitches.

Local installers helped validate the mapping estimates and together with other installers, community energy groups, the council, Bristol University and others interested in solar have recently formed the Bristol Solar Group.

(CD/GK)