The city of Ann Arbor Wednesday announced a new online service for residents that evaluates their home's solar-energy potential.

The new program assesses 21,000 Ann Arbor homes, identifying 18,000 solar candidates.

Residents can get their free solar analysis by visiting www.a2gov.org, selecting "my property information," and clicking on the "solar potential" tab.

An analysis of solar potential for 21,000 addresses is available in a user-friendly format thanks to a partnership of several city units and the University of Michigan, and will help Ann Arbor achieve its goals of 5,000 Solar Roofs and 20 percent renewable energy by 2015.

To help achieve this goal, the city Energy Commission and students from the University of Michigan used aerial photographs to assess 21,000 roofs. The analysis showed that over 18,000 Ann Arbor roofs are potential candidates for solar hot water or solar electric systems.

The Ann Arbor Energy Office and Energy Commission then worked with the Information Technology Services Unit to provide the results via the city’s Google-based My Property web application within a new tab called "Solar Potential." As with other data sets available through the My Property set of applications, once a user submits a valid address, a series of tabs display theme-based information (i.e., Solid Waste, Storm Water, Voter Information). By selecting the new "Solar Potential" tab, residents can see the results of the study for their address in the familiar Google map interface.