  We formulate a simple solvation potential based on a coarsed-grain
representation of amino acids with two spheres modeling the $C_\alpha$ atom and
an effective side-chain centroid. The potential relies on a new method for
estimating the buried area of residues, based on counting the effective number
of burying neighbours in a suitable way. This latter quantity shows a good
correlation with the buried area of residues computed from all atom
crystallographic structures. We check the discriminatory power of the solvation
potential alone to identify the native fold of a protein from a set of decoys
and show the potential to be considerably selective.
