PowerSwitch

Tesla is going into the manufacture of roof tiles with PV cells embedded made of glass. See here and here.

They look a damn sight better than any equivalent product. In fact there isn't an equivalent product that I know of. But they are 2% less efficient! Big deal!!

kenneal - lagger wrote:Tesla is going into the manufacture of roof tiles with PV cells embedded made of glass. See here and here.

They look a damn sight better than any equivalent product. In fact there isn't an equivalent product that I know of. But they are 2% less efficient! Big deal!!

These look good. The durability is a plus too.

They look great I reckon. There have been a few attempts to make solar tiles in the past but they always looked substantially different and never seemed to aim at replacing an entire roof.

I'm sure it'll win over the quite substantial number of people who don't like the look of conventional PV and would never install it.

Lots of unanswered questions though, especially the marginal cost over replacing an existing roof. If they can get that to within the same ballpark as conventional PV costs then it could be a winner.

Arguably more impressive is the price point for the new Powerwall which works out at about £320/kWh installed (that's using the suggested US prices of $5,500 plus $1,000 installation using the current $ to £ rate). in the UK it costs about £220/kWh usable for reasonable quality lead acids (T105s) and that's before inverter (which the new Powerwall includes) and installation.

My concern is that the availability of these Tesla PV units may result in the heritage/conservation/building control industry INSISTING that these be used at substantial extra cost.

This could result in otherwise viable PV schemes becoming unaffordable and therefore not being installed.

Solar tiles are generally a lot more expensive per watt, about twice the price over the best large PV panels. They really are only an option where an otherwise ideal roof cannot be panelled for cosmetic or heritage reasons.

Far cheaper to put standard panels on a less optimal roof.