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Is there any competitor in the USA? The idea of roof tiles which are themselves solar panels seems sensible to me, and it's more aesthetically pleasing than put

by Reubend 26d ago

Is there any competitor in the USA? The idea of roof tiles which are themselves solar panels seems sensible to me, and it's more aesthetically pleasing than putting panels on top of normal tiles.

sorenjan 26d ago
Jackery Solar Roof.
dbt00 26d ago
No, it's an impractical idea that nobody wanted.
- bjelkeman-again 26d ago
  I did want it. Would have looked great on my quite old house where it is highly impractical to have conventional solar panels, as there is essentially not enough space anywhere to have more than one or two panels in the same location, and I need new tiles soon anyway. I think it turns out it was announced too early and attempted to scale before it was ready (turns out it won't be ready at all in this iteration).
  - delecti 26d ago
    > not enough space anywhere to have more than one or two panels in the same location That isn't necessarily a downside though. By having panels on a variety of orientations on your roof, you can spread out the generation through the day and mitigate a bit of the duck curve.
    - bjelkeman-again 25d ago
      It is true, but my house has some many dormers (a new word for me), chimneys and air vents, that I hardly can get a meaningful set of panels in. Solar tiles would have been great. Alas.
- KeplerBoy 26d ago
  Works perfectly fine in Europe. https://www.prefa.at/produkt-katalog/solarsysteme/solardachplatte https://www.prefa.at/produkt-katalog/solarsysteme/solardachp...
  - JKCalhoun 26d ago
    Interesting. They look great on a single-surface roof with 90° edges. It seems that as soon as your roof deviates from that the aesthetics begin to trend toward conventional PV panels (which of course also do not accommodate more complex roof profiles).
    - rsynnott 26d ago
      Bonkers roof profiles are primarily and American thing, to be honest; not that they’re totally non-existent elsewhere, but the super-complex roof on a detached house is very American.
      - JKCalhoun 26d ago
        Interesting. (Yeah, I kind of envy the "A-Frame" that I <rarely> spot in the wild here—so simple). I didn't know the manifold roof was an American thing.
        rsynnott 25d ago
        A (rather snarky) piece about it here: https://mcmansionhell.com/post/149948821221/mcmansions-101-roofs https://mcmansionhell.com/post/149948821221/mcmansions-101-r... tl;dr - It's driven by internal room shape requirements (plus weak planning; in some jurisdictions "no, that's an eyesore mess, redesign it" it a thing in planning, but I gather largely not in most US juristicitions).
walrus01 26d ago
It's extremely labor intensive and costly to put stuff up on the roof, and problematic in terms of electrical connector, electrical safety, and being proprietary for mounting and roof repair. Big ass PV panels that are 2.0 x 1.0 meter in size (or larger) are so cheap now for photovoltaic ground mounts that the labor and mounting can actually cost more than the panels. 460W panels can be something like $0.25 USD per STC watt in single pallet quantities shipped as LTL freight. Or at least if you have to use your roof, just put them on boring aluminum rail mounts on roofs which are a much more known factor for roofing repair and labor.
- _JamesA_ 26d ago
  How does one go about acquiring these?
  - walrus01 26d ago
    By googling wholesale solar panel dealers, one example would be https://krannich-solar.com/us-en/ https://krannich-solar.com/us-en/ Assuming you're in the US 48 states there should be plenty of companies that'll take your money for a factory sealed pallet load of panels. They come wrapped up from the factory, basically all they do is do the invoicing/billing to you, they buy them by the 40' or 45' container load and then load them onto trucks at a loading dock. PV panel factory datasheets will clearly specify how many are on a pallet and how many pallets fit in a single container.
    - SwamyM 26d ago
      Have you done this yourself? I am curious what the installation process is like. It seems like all the home solar companies I've dealt with want to sell you the whole kit (panels, inverter, etc.). If you've done this, I am curious how your experience was.
      - walrus01 26d ago
        I've done it for small scale off grid telecom projects in the 10 to 20kW class of total quantity of panels at one site, not actually at my home (which is surrounded by trees on all sides in the pacific northwest, I'd need to build a 40kW ground mount to have any reasonable amount of production). It's completely doable if you study electrical fundamentals but I'd also recommend hiring a pro to help out if you don't have the background. There is considerable overlap between the knowledge base for -48VDC telecom battery/DC bus/breaker/fuse panel and distribution systems and PV/off grid solar stuff, so using some of the same people who do on-grid rectifier-to-telecom-DC-power-system work was fairly straightforward for us.
readthenotes1 26d ago
Sorta. The closest I know of is https://www.gaf.com/en-us/roofing-materials/residential-roofing-materials/solar-roof/gaf-energy-timberline-solar-roofing-system https://www.gaf.com/en-us/roofing-materials/residential-roof... The advantage is that you don't have to drill additional holes into your roof, nor do you have to have shingles under the solar panels. Depending on where you live and how much you pay in taxes, they may be enticing.
Vaslo 26d ago
Clearly it’s very expensive and people aren’t paying for it.
JKCalhoun 26d ago
Hundreds (and hundreds?) of tiles with twice that number of electrical connectors… what could possible go wrong? I mean vs. a dozen or twenty large, conventional panels. Maybe we need to adjust our aesthetics before we compromise the engineering overly much.
rsynnott 26d ago
It's a slightly weird proposition, in that, well, pitched roofs last about 50 to 100 years, typically (at least here; I gather it _is_ somewhat different in the US due to different materials and building standards). So you probably don't really _want_ to prematurely replace your whole roof, so your market is basically... people who happen to need a roof replaced right now? They also appear to have been _extremely_ expensive. Like on the order of 10x the cost of a conventional solar installation. Conventional solar panels look perfectly fine to me, FWIW.
IgorPartola 26d ago
There are apparently several traditional roof shingle makers who have previewed solar tiles. A friend of mine who is a roofer told me he would not trust Tesla and is waiting for a reliable supplier. Apparently he is a smart man.
froggy 26d ago
I was getting solar quotes recently and came across the CertainTeed brand that makes a “solar shingle”. I have no idea where they are made or how they compare to regular panels.
tzs 26d ago
Yes. Both GAF and CertainTeed, the #1 (30% of the market) and #3 (15% of the market) shingle makers in the US, both have solar shingles. Their solar shingles looks like regular shingles and install on the roof the same way as regular shingles. Installers just need to be regular roofers with some extra training to handle the peculiarities of solar shingles. I don't know about GAF but the extra training for CertainTeed can be done online. Compare to Tesla Solar Roof where the physical installation requires completely different skills. As a result there are way more crews available who can install GAF or CertainTeed solar shingles than Tesla roofs. The Tesla roof tiles are more efficient than the solar shingles and they cover the whole roof, whereas the solar shingles usually don't cover the whole roof, so the Tesla roof usually generates more power. GAF is 140 years old and CertainTeed is 122 years old, and making building materials is their main business. This makes them a lot less risky than Tesla was. If they ever decide to stop doing solar shingles it is almost certain they will handle it better than Tesla since their core business depends on keeping roofing contractors happy. They will almost certainly keep repair parts available, crews will remain available for maintenance. Even if decades from now replacement solar shingles are not available any dead solar shingle can be replaced with a regular shingle and an electrician can adjust the system accordingly. When the roof reaches end of life and needs to be replaced, you just need an electrician to de-energize the roof and then removing it is just like removing a regular roof. The Tesla roof on the other hand requires a special crew, both for repairs and replacement. Removing the roof is a much more involved process than removing a solar shingles roof. This is likely going to screw existing Tesla roof owners. With Tesla actively in the business it was seen as a premium feature, bumping the market value of your house by maybe 5 or so percent. Now buyers will see a house with one as a potential maintenance liability that will be a nightmare when it reaches EOL. Sellers may have to offer a substantial discount to sell their houses. It comes down to GAF and CertainTeed treat it as a roof first which has solar technology, whereas with Tesla is more solar technology that is a roof.

by Reubend 26d ago

Is there any competitor in the USA? The idea of roof tiles which are themselves solar panels seems sensible to me, and it's more aesthetically pleasing than putting panels on top of normal tiles.

sorenjan 26d ago

Jackery Solar Roof.

dbt00 26d ago

No, it's an impractical idea that nobody wanted.

bjelkeman-again 26d ago
I did want it. Would have looked great on my quite old house where it is highly impractical to have conventional solar panels, as there is essentially not enough space anywhere to have more than one or two panels in the same location, and I need new tiles soon anyway. I think it turns out it was announced too early and attempted to scale before it was ready (turns out it won't be ready at all in this iteration).
- delecti 26d ago
  > not enough space anywhere to have more than one or two panels in the same location That isn't necessarily a downside though. By having panels on a variety of orientations on your roof, you can spread out the generation through the day and mitigate a bit of the duck curve.
  - bjelkeman-again 25d ago
    It is true, but my house has some many dormers (a new word for me), chimneys and air vents, that I hardly can get a meaningful set of panels in. Solar tiles would have been great. Alas.
KeplerBoy 26d ago
Works perfectly fine in Europe. https://www.prefa.at/produkt-katalog/solarsysteme/solardachplatte https://www.prefa.at/produkt-katalog/solarsysteme/solardachp...
- JKCalhoun 26d ago
  Interesting. They look great on a single-surface roof with 90° edges. It seems that as soon as your roof deviates from that the aesthetics begin to trend toward conventional PV panels (which of course also do not accommodate more complex roof profiles).
  - rsynnott 26d ago
    Bonkers roof profiles are primarily and American thing, to be honest; not that they’re totally non-existent elsewhere, but the super-complex roof on a detached house is very American.
    - JKCalhoun 26d ago
      Interesting. (Yeah, I kind of envy the "A-Frame" that I <rarely> spot in the wild here—so simple). I didn't know the manifold roof was an American thing.
      - rsynnott 25d ago
        A (rather snarky) piece about it here: https://mcmansionhell.com/post/149948821221/mcmansions-101-roofs https://mcmansionhell.com/post/149948821221/mcmansions-101-r... tl;dr - It's driven by internal room shape requirements (plus weak planning; in some jurisdictions "no, that's an eyesore mess, redesign it" it a thing in planning, but I gather largely not in most US juristicitions).

walrus01 26d ago

It's extremely labor intensive and costly to put stuff up on the roof, and problematic in terms of electrical connector, electrical safety, and being proprietary for mounting and roof repair. Big ass PV panels that are 2.0 x 1.0 meter in size (or larger) are so cheap now for photovoltaic ground mounts that the labor and mounting can actually cost more than the panels. 460W panels can be something like $0.25 USD per STC watt in single pallet quantities shipped as LTL freight. Or at least if you have to use your roof, just put them on boring aluminum rail mounts on roofs which are a much more known factor for roofing repair and labor.

_JamesA_ 26d ago
How does one go about acquiring these?
- walrus01 26d ago
  By googling wholesale solar panel dealers, one example would be https://krannich-solar.com/us-en/ https://krannich-solar.com/us-en/ Assuming you're in the US 48 states there should be plenty of companies that'll take your money for a factory sealed pallet load of panels. They come wrapped up from the factory, basically all they do is do the invoicing/billing to you, they buy them by the 40' or 45' container load and then load them onto trucks at a loading dock. PV panel factory datasheets will clearly specify how many are on a pallet and how many pallets fit in a single container.
  - SwamyM 26d ago
    Have you done this yourself? I am curious what the installation process is like. It seems like all the home solar companies I've dealt with want to sell you the whole kit (panels, inverter, etc.). If you've done this, I am curious how your experience was.
    - walrus01 26d ago
      I've done it for small scale off grid telecom projects in the 10 to 20kW class of total quantity of panels at one site, not actually at my home (which is surrounded by trees on all sides in the pacific northwest, I'd need to build a 40kW ground mount to have any reasonable amount of production). It's completely doable if you study electrical fundamentals but I'd also recommend hiring a pro to help out if you don't have the background. There is considerable overlap between the knowledge base for -48VDC telecom battery/DC bus/breaker/fuse panel and distribution systems and PV/off grid solar stuff, so using some of the same people who do on-grid rectifier-to-telecom-DC-power-system work was fairly straightforward for us.

readthenotes1 26d ago

Sorta. The closest I know of is https://www.gaf.com/en-us/roofing-materials/residential-roofing-materials/solar-roof/gaf-energy-timberline-solar-roofing-system https://www.gaf.com/en-us/roofing-materials/residential-roof... The advantage is that you don't have to drill additional holes into your roof, nor do you have to have shingles under the solar panels. Depending on where you live and how much you pay in taxes, they may be enticing.

Vaslo 26d ago

Clearly it’s very expensive and people aren’t paying for it.

JKCalhoun 26d ago

Hundreds (and hundreds?) of tiles with twice that number of electrical connectors… what could possible go wrong? I mean vs. a dozen or twenty large, conventional panels. Maybe we need to adjust our aesthetics before we compromise the engineering overly much.

rsynnott 26d ago

It's a slightly weird proposition, in that, well, pitched roofs last about 50 to 100 years, typically (at least here; I gather it _is_ somewhat different in the US due to different materials and building standards). So you probably don't really _want_ to prematurely replace your whole roof, so your market is basically... people who happen to need a roof replaced right now? They also appear to have been _extremely_ expensive. Like on the order of 10x the cost of a conventional solar installation. Conventional solar panels look perfectly fine to me, FWIW.

IgorPartola 26d ago

There are apparently several traditional roof shingle makers who have previewed solar tiles. A friend of mine who is a roofer told me he would not trust Tesla and is waiting for a reliable supplier. Apparently he is a smart man.

froggy 26d ago

I was getting solar quotes recently and came across the CertainTeed brand that makes a “solar shingle”. I have no idea where they are made or how they compare to regular panels.

tzs 26d ago

Yes. Both GAF and CertainTeed, the #1 (30% of the market) and #3 (15% of the market) shingle makers in the US, both have solar shingles. Their solar shingles looks like regular shingles and install on the roof the same way as regular shingles. Installers just need to be regular roofers with some extra training to handle the peculiarities of solar shingles. I don't know about GAF but the extra training for CertainTeed can be done online. Compare to Tesla Solar Roof where the physical installation requires completely different skills. As a result there are way more crews available who can install GAF or CertainTeed solar shingles than Tesla roofs. The Tesla roof tiles are more efficient than the solar shingles and they cover the whole roof, whereas the solar shingles usually don't cover the whole roof, so the Tesla roof usually generates more power. GAF is 140 years old and CertainTeed is 122 years old, and making building materials is their main business. This makes them a lot less risky than Tesla was. If they ever decide to stop doing solar shingles it is almost certain they will handle it better than Tesla since their core business depends on keeping roofing contractors happy. They will almost certainly keep repair parts available, crews will remain available for maintenance. Even if decades from now replacement solar shingles are not available any dead solar shingle can be replaced with a regular shingle and an electrician can adjust the system accordingly. When the roof reaches end of life and needs to be replaced, you just need an electrician to de-energize the roof and then removing it is just like removing a regular roof. The Tesla roof on the other hand requires a special crew, both for repairs and replacement. Removing the roof is a much more involved process than removing a solar shingles roof. This is likely going to screw existing Tesla roof owners. With Tesla actively in the business it was seen as a premium feature, bumping the market value of your house by maybe 5 or so percent. Now buyers will see a house with one as a potential maintenance liability that will be a nightmare when it reaches EOL. Sellers may have to offer a substantial discount to sell their houses. It comes down to GAF and CertainTeed treat it as a roof first which has solar technology, whereas with Tesla is more solar technology that is a roof.