Eli5: Why didn’t some form of solar shingle/form end up successful?

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I know there probably is a good reason, either the tech, financial trade offs, etc.

And I’m not a homeowner but I’ve been watching on the topic lately.

Wouldn’t serving as a roof have a significant offset to the true cost? Even at 50% off the roof?

It seems they do the opposite, build on the existing ones.

Edit roof not form

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9 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Instead of large panels you now need to have a ton of small ones, and they have to look like real roof shingles/tiles.

You also have techs specialized in installing and setting them up.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Solar roofs are still a thing. Several companies are selling them.

It makes the most sense for a totally new build. If you’re building a new house from scratch and you want solar anyway, why not? I think it’s a great feature for brand-new high-end homes.

The average roof lasts 20 – 30 years. So that means that the vast majority of homeowners who are thinking of solar probably don’t need to replace their whole roof. That drastically limits the market to people who were about to replace their roof, or who have so much spare money they don’t care.

Another concern: you don’t need to cover your whole roof with solar to generate enough electricity for your home. I have a lot of solar panels on my roof, enough to completely offset my entire electric bill. It’s a lot of panels, but it’s less than half of my total roof area. (Also, often half of your roof is angled the wrong way and doesn’t get much sunlight.)

If I replaced my whole roof with solar, I’d be producing way more electricity than I need, for no benefit. If I produce extra, the utility company doesn’t pay me for it. They do give me credits towards electricity I consume – but once I reach “zero” I don’t get paid for any extra. So there’s incentive for me to offset my usage, but not to produce more than that.

Finally, there’s repair. I looked into Tesla’s solar roof and they get great reviews for the look and efficiency, but terrible reviews for service / repair if something goes wrong.

So as cool as they look, financially it just doesn’t make sense:

* I’d be replacing a roof that doesn’t need to be replaced for 10+ years
* I’d be buying way more panels then I need, for no benefit
* I’d be tying myself to parts / repairs from just one company, rather than being able to purchase replacements / repairs from any company in the future

Anonymous 0 Comments

Solar roof is harder to do maintenance on, and also harder to adjust to follow the sun if that’s a concern. It’s cheaper to have it on a dedicated mount on the ground, where you can clean or manage it easier

Anonymous 0 Comments

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Anonymous 0 Comments

There is a video with Elon talking about solar shingles, I can’t quote it, but he explains why it is not a good idea.

Anonymous 0 Comments

They do exist, but by the very nature of a roof a huge chunk of your solar panel shingles are going to be doing basically nothing because they won’t be angled towards the sun, or very poorly angled or blocked by other sections of the roof. That and your “solar panels” need to be in a shingle form factor and aesthetic which means they will never be quite as efficient as standard panels.

In theory the fact that they are pulling double duty as both your roof and your solar array is supposed to make them more cost effective, but that is simply never going to be the case in reality. They will continue to fill a niche for rich people who want solar but care more about the aesthetics than the cost effectiveness, but that’s about it.

Anonymous 0 Comments

I’m in the innovations industry and I have to say, I’ve seen a few instances of these solar shingles concepts. Much of it fail due to it having an oversimplified concept, not enough development, lack of interest, lack of funding, … The list goes on. Within companies that we see, they also don’t have enough proper handling on how much damage they can take, life span, energy production… Any of the hard numbers. Only one thing is sure and that is the production cost which can climb very high or very low but with very tiny gains in the long run.

Note that this is different from a solar roof which is installing panels on top.

Explain like I’m 5: lack of interest -> lack of funding -> high production costs and limited gains -> lack of interest

Anonymous 0 Comments

I have a Neighbour who has a Tera Cota style roof. A bunch of the tiles were broken and it was time to replace it, so they replaced it with a Tesla roof.
The thing nobody really talks about. It was shiny. Super reflective. It kind of made it super ugly to me.

I also think the installation was a pain. The crew was there multiple times multiple weeks apart. It was pre Covid and they were just starting g to role then out so maybe they just didn’t know what they were doing

Anonymous 0 Comments

You are combining 2 critical systems. in your house. Electrical, and weatherproofing, and creating a dependency between them.

An asphalt shingle has one and only one job, and that is to shed water, when properly applied, it does it’s job for 30-ish years. It is made of fiberglass, tar, and coarse sand. It’s failure modes are physical trauma.

A solar shingle is a piece of technology. It is multiple layers of glass, plastic, Photovoltaic cells, wiring, electronics, connectors, etc. They are “warrantied” to “25-30” years, but the earliest cases have only been on the market for ~20 years. So the reliability data is just not here yet for them.

They need to have the reliability data in place before they begin to make sense when comparing a cost of $4 per square foot to install vs $20-$30 ish (and that only gets about 70% of your roof)

Now you can’t sell power back to the power company any more, you can only accumulate credits to offset your use. There is no way to have them “pay for themselves”. it would take about 20 years for the roof to pay for itself by offsetting power bills, right about the same time you would need to replace them again.

Math just doesn’t add up for them.