3 ms·

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

by dbt00 25d ago

bjelkeman-again 25d 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 25d 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 24d 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 25d ago
Works perfectly fine in Europe. https://www.prefa.at/produkt-katalog/solarsysteme/solardachplatte https://www.prefa.at/produkt-katalog/solarsysteme/solardachp...
- JKCalhoun 25d 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 25d 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 24d 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 24d 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).

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

by dbt00 25d ago

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

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 25d 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 24d 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 25d ago

Works perfectly fine in Europe. https://www.prefa.at/produkt-katalog/solarsysteme/solardachplatte https://www.prefa.at/produkt-katalog/solarsysteme/solardachp...

JKCalhoun 25d 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 25d 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 24d 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 24d 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).