GeoEye, Inc., a leading provider of geospatial information and insight, today announced a strategic relationship with Geostellar, an innovative technology company that is transforming the solar energy industry. Under the terms of the agreement, GeoEye will supply high-quality Earth imagery, digital surface models and other mapping data to help Geostellar dramatically expand its service. GeoEye also intends to take a small equity position in the company.
Geostellar has built a breakthrough analytics platform that automatically determines how quickly a given property owner can recoup an investment in solar energy. The company’s platform models roof slope, shadows, weather patterns, local utility rates and solar energy subsidies to automate what has historically been a highly manual process. Geostellar has built solar maps in Washington D.C., Boston, Indianapolis, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and New Jersey, where government agencies have made aerial imagery freely available. Geostellar needed a strategic partner to help collect and process massive amounts of Earth imagery data to catalog the solar power potential of every commercial and residential property in the United States. GeoEye will become Geostellar’s Earth imagery vendor of choice and apply image processing capabilities developed by GeoEye Analytics to provide the data required to develop solar maps for every key metropolitan market in the United States.
“GeoEye is constantly searching for ways Earth imagery and other forms of geospatial data can be utilized to deliver new levels of insight,” said Tony Frazier, senior vice president of Marketing. “Geostellar is a terrific example of how geospatial analytics can help transform a multi-billion dollar industry. We are excited to combine imagery, expertise and enabling technology to help Geostellar achieve its vision.”
“High quality, digital surface models and mapping data provide critical fuel to our engine,” said David Levine, founder and CEO of Geostellar. “Our strategic relationship with GeoEye will help millions of residential and commercial property owners understand how quickly they can generate a return on investment by going solar.”
“It is exciting to see Geostellar apply capabilities developed by GeoEye Analytics to support such an innovative use case,” said Mark Dumas, GeoEye’s vice president of Special Projects and co-founder of SPADAC, now known as GeoEye Analytics. “It is a great example of how the expertise and enabling technology we developed to support our military customers can be applied to drive commercial growth.”
About Geostellar
Geostellar is making clean energy affordable and available to the world. The company has pioneered big-data geomatics to provide comprehensive and precise values for available renewable resources. Using geospatial data and digital surface models, Geostellar’s platform provides “Earth intelligence” for any geographic location based on atmosphere, physiography, infrastructure, policy, and economics. Geostellar models the availability of our sunlight in high spatial and temporal resolution, then computes the proximity and capacity of local infrastructure, regulations, property ownership, utility rates and incentives, markets and economics to produce valuable and actionable location-specific awareness. Geostellar’s unique subscription services platform allows energy producers, utility companies, property owners, industry suppliers and public administrators to identify the fastest, most efficient, and highest profitability paths to increase the supply of clean, green, renewable power. For more information visit: http://www.geostellar.com or email [email protected].
About GeoEye
GeoEye is a leading source of geospatial information and insight for decision makers and analysts who need a clear understanding of our changing world to protect lives, manage risk and optimize resources. Each day, organizations in defense and intelligence, public safety, critical infrastructure, energy and online media rely on GeoEye’s imagery, tools and expertise to support important missions around the globe. Widely recognized as a pioneer in high-resolution satellite imagery, GeoEye has evolved into a complete provider of geospatial intelligence solutions. GeoEye’s ability to collect, process and analyze massive amounts of geospatial data allows our customers to quickly see precise changes on the ground and anticipate where events may occur in the future. GeoEye is a public company listed on NASDAQ as GEOY and is headquartered in Herndon, Virginia with more than 750 employees worldwide. Learn more at www.geoeye.com.
