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Tesla Solar Roof is on life support as it pivot to panels

electrek.co

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Re: Tesla Solar Roof is on life support as it pivot to panels

#31

Post by pyrale »

Teever wrote: post #13

Tesla's inability to produce solar panels is why I'm most skeptical of the whole terafab datacentre in space stuff. Everyone gets caught up in the thermal management stuff and the power density stuff and whatever but to me that's a red herring. The real issue is that Tesla has never known the ability to produce solar panels at scale and Musk said in that recent interview with Dwarkesh that he intends to do all the so…

> Tesla's inability to produce solar panels is why I'm most skeptical of the whole terafab datacentre in space stuff.

I'm split on the datacenter-in-space stuff. I don't know whether I should disbelieve it because there is, obviously, no good way to evacuate heat in space, or because Musk talked about it, and he has an uncanny track record of not upholding his promises.

Re: Tesla Solar Roof is on life support as it pivot to panels

#32

Post by ZeroGravitas »

unsnap_biceps wrote: post #9

Did any other manufacturers build their own version? It seems like the right long term idea but the lack of other players seems to indicate there's some underlying issue that isn't solved yet.

There's a few competitors.

The market shrank because standard panels and their mounting techniques got more aesthetically pleasing and cheaper.

Re: Tesla Solar Roof is on life support as it pivot to panels

#33

Post by pavon »

pram wrote: post #28

I don’t think it’s that good of an idea because only 50% of my roof was good for solar power (that is what faces the sun) so having the entire thing be panels is mostly a waste. I’m sure this is the case for a lot of houses. When I had panels installed, adding them on the “bad side” would only gain a few kwh.

I don't think you typically install PV tiles on the entire Tesla Solar Roof. They have matching non-solar tiles, and you choose how much of the roof will be PV.

Re: Tesla Solar Roof is on life support as it pivot to panels

#34

Post by lathiat »

pram wrote: post #28

I don’t think it’s that good of an idea because only 50% of my roof was good for solar power (that is what faces the sun) so having the entire thing be panels is mostly a waste. I’m sure this is the case for a lot of houses. When I had panels installed, adding them on the “bad side” would only gain a few kwh.

This is sort of over stated generally.

In Australia where North is “optimal”, even South facing panels produce only 20-30% less and East/West about 15%. It does vary a bit by latitude but it’s not at all pointless to install them in other orientations in many places. I have not done the math to see how much of the world this extends to, but it applies to a fairly large chunk of Australia. Source: https://www.solarquotes.com.au/panels/direction/

Tesla’s system also had non solar tiles so you could just skip the panels in whichever parts you wanted.

Roof construction is quite different here to the US though. We never have the plywood layer, it’s either ceramic tile or Colorbond steel directly onto usually wooden sometimes steel beams.

Re: Tesla Solar Roof is on life support as it pivot to panels

#36

Post by awestroke »

lathiat wrote: post #34
pram wrote: post #28

I don’t think it’s that good of an idea because only 50% of my roof was good for solar power (that is what faces the sun) so having the entire thing be panels is mostly a waste. I’m sure this is the case for a lot of houses. When I had panels installed, adding them on the “bad side” would only gain a few kwh.

This is sort of over stated generally. In Australia where North is “optimal”, even South facing panels produce only 20-30% less and East/West about 15%. It does vary a bit by latitude but it’s not at all pointless to install them in other orientations in many places. I have not done the math to see how much of the world this extends to, but it applies to a fairly large chunk of Australia. Source: https://www.solarquo…

Australia is pretty close to the equator

Re: Tesla Solar Roof is on life support as it pivot to panels

#37

Post by DanielHB »

pram wrote: post #28

I don’t think it’s that good of an idea because only 50% of my roof was good for solar power (that is what faces the sun) so having the entire thing be panels is mostly a waste. I’m sure this is the case for a lot of houses. When I had panels installed, adding them on the “bad side” would only gain a few kwh.

From what I remember they also sold cheaper tiles that looked like the normal ones, but actually didn't have solar panels for this exact problem. I don't think this was much of a factor at all why this didn't work.

The main issue was that normal large panels got a lot cheaper way faster than expected and custom sized ones like that end up costing too much by comparison.

Re: Tesla Solar Roof is on life support as it pivot to panels

#38

Post by cyberax »

unsnap_biceps wrote: post #9

Did any other manufacturers build their own version? It seems like the right long term idea but the lack of other players seems to indicate there's some underlying issue that isn't solved yet.

The problem is the cost. Tiles are pretty small, and you need to wire them together. This means a lot of small-gauge wires going all through your roof.

Multiple tiles also need to be connected in series to get reasonable efficiency, so you get plenty of failure points where one bad connection can cause a significant part of your solar roof to become useless. And you won't be able to easily fix it.

You can obviously fix all these issues, but it makes tiles too expensive.

Re: Tesla Solar Roof is on life support as it pivot to panels

#39

Post by aeronaut80 »

awestroke wrote: post #36
lathiat wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is sort of over stated generally. In Australia where North is “optimal”, even South facing panels produce only 20-30% less and East/West about 15%. It does vary a bit by latitude but it’s not at all pointless to install them in other orientations in many places. I have not done the math to see how much of the world this extends to, but it applies to a fairly large chunk of Australia. Source: https://www.solarquo…

Australia is pretty close to the equator

Depending on which part you consider it’s also halfway to the South Pole. Cape York to Tasmania is almost 33° of latitude.
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