This is an awesome product and a big disruptor. Has anyone done the math on the revenues and profitability for Tesla? On the one hand it will sell for more than the typical 10-20K roof job. But then it is supposed to last 50years. What are the chances that Tesla will even be around in 50years?
No One Saw Tesla’s Solar Roof Coming
151–160 of 290 posts
Re: No One Saw Tesla’s Solar Roof Coming
#152I had serious misgivings when Tesla/SolarCity announced a switch of focus to building-integrated PV. Historically, BIPV is where a PV technology goes to die after it's failed to compete against incumbent module designs. But these have far better aesthetics than previous BIPV efforts. They look better individually and they aren't clumped in one odd shiny patch on the roof like past BIPV. Search for images of solar shi…
Its a dodgy business though converting your entire roof to this technology (in its first iteration too). What if a tile breaks? Whats the lifetime on each tile?
Re: No One Saw Tesla’s Solar Roof Coming
#153I had serious misgivings when Tesla/SolarCity announced a switch of focus to building-integrated PV. Historically, BIPV is where a PV technology goes to die after it's failed to compete against incumbent module designs. But these have far better aesthetics than previous BIPV efforts. They look better individually and they aren't clumped in one odd shiny patch on the roof like past BIPV. Search for images of solar shi…
But is it carbon-neutral now? Let's remind the whole picture here: We want to come back to global greenhouse gases emissions on 1990, because they were balanced by nature's absorption. It often happens that the cost of building solar panels, transporting them to the location, disposing them before their estimated time-to-live and getting rid of all their chemicals emit more carbon than we save by using electricity fr…
1) Anthropogenic CO2 emission rates in 1990 were greater than natural sinks could offset.
2) Under any reasonable set of assumptions, rooftop solar PV has significantly lower emissions per kWh than the cleanest fossil sources. In 2014 the IPCC estimated a median value of 41 gCO2-e/kWh for rooftop PV generation vs. 490 for combined cycle natural gas generation.
3) Perhaps some of the CO2 avoidance will be squandered eventually as solar becomes cheaper, thereby encouraging use of more electricity, but so far total electricity use is uncorrelated or even anti-correlated with the presence of rooftop solar generation. "Rooftop solar" and "energy-thrifty building construction/operation" cluster together, so far, rather than displacing each other.
Re: No One Saw Tesla’s Solar Roof Coming
#154I'm sure i'm not the only one who feels like this is possibly the iphone moment of Solarcity/Tesla: an old-ish idea, made sexy and tasty to consumers, together with technology reaching a tipping point(and also Musk again finding a way to maximally exploit government subsidies for clean tech.) The tesla car itself could count as well, but felt less "design driven" imo. If this fails, everyone will call it obviously du…
Another side note: it always annoys me when people insinuate that Musk using government funds is a bad thing. The government is literally just US....it's our money and a collection of individuals from among us who we've appointed to handle the general administration of us and the space we take up. Why should American entrepreneurs, particularly ones doing such an outstanding job of moving technology in a positive dir…
In this case it's taxpayers subsidising high end roofing for nice houses owned by well off people.
Re: No One Saw Tesla’s Solar Roof Coming
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not enough of an environmental physicist type to know for sure, but I think warm air (produced by various electronics) is preferable to a hot roof emitting blackbody radiation (which radiates at the wavelength that greenhouse gasses absorb).
From a green house global warming perspective, we want as much light (and heat) reflected back into space as possible right now.
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Re: No One Saw Tesla’s Solar Roof Coming
#156I'm curious if anyone has stats on what percentage of houses have an unobstructed southern roof (for those in the Northern hemisphere)? My house has seasonally adjusted nanotechnology self-replicating shade "panels" that block considerable sunlight in the spring and summer months (MTBF: 100+ years). The big downside is cleaning up the unused panels in the autumn.
I installed them on my walls. It's great, they automatically install themself on the wall with built in glue, while picking the sunniest spots, and automatically drop the shade panels in the winter to increase solar heating on the house.
I have to remove them from the windows, but otherwise they are mostly maintenance free.
But my MBTF was only 10 years, the first set stopped working in the middle of the summer for no reason after almost completely covering the house, and I had to install a second one (this time with 2 spares, just in case). Luckily the first set delivered the new ones to me for free.
My roof faces East-West, my wall is to the South.
Re: No One Saw Tesla’s Solar Roof Coming
#157I'm curious. From a global warming + CO2 perspective (and total costs, maybe), are we better off:
- by making mirror roofs that bounce as much light as possible back towards the sky (therefore not trapping heat, and reducing the need for A/C in the summer);
- or by using heat-trapping solar roofs that produce electricity but act as heat-sinks and require more A/C usage in the summer?
And what about shingles that go from mirror to black from summer to winter, to decrease the need of winter heating as well as summer A/C?
What if we take in account the amount of CO2 needed to manufacture the solar roof?
Re: No One Saw Tesla’s Solar Roof Coming
#158I'm sure i'm not the only one who feels like this is possibly the iphone moment of Solarcity/Tesla: an old-ish idea, made sexy and tasty to consumers, together with technology reaching a tipping point(and also Musk again finding a way to maximally exploit government subsidies for clean tech.) The tesla car itself could count as well, but felt less "design driven" imo. If this fails, everyone will call it obviously du…
fossil fuel industry people are somehow able to forget that they get subsidies right now every time they comment about clean tech subsidies.
Can anyone explain to me these oft-mentioned government subsidies on fossil fuels?
Gas has 25% taxes where I live. Surely that's the opposite of 'subsidizing' it (vs, for example, electricity which is taxed at 5%).
What am I missing?
Re: No One Saw Tesla’s Solar Roof Coming
#159'No one saw Tesla's solar roof coming...' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_shingle Solar shingles, also called photovoltaic shingles, are solar panels or solar modules designed to look like and function as conventional roofing materials, such as asphalt shingle or slate, while also producing electricity. Solar shingles are a type of solar energy solution known as building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV). There are…
Those shingles look awful, eg. http://roofpedia.com/solar-roof-shingles/#pictures . Are there existing solar shingles that look like conventional roofs? Otherwise, maybe that was what made those solar shingles fail to find a market.
The shingles themselves look great. The installation is terrible, right over the top of old shingles and not even fully covering the old shingles. It's not edge-to-edge.
Either it was a dumb install, or those "shingles" aren't really roofing material.
Re: No One Saw Tesla’s Solar Roof Coming
#160I had serious misgivings when Tesla/SolarCity announced a switch of focus to building-integrated PV. Historically, BIPV is where a PV technology goes to die after it's failed to compete against incumbent module designs. But these have far better aesthetics than previous BIPV efforts. They look better individually and they aren't clumped in one odd shiny patch on the roof like past BIPV. Search for images of solar shi…
The 30% tax credit for solar installations may well be adjusted. These kinds of things are not so absolute.