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Tesla Unveils Residential 'Solar Roof' With Updated Battery Storage System (theverge.com)
Tesla founder and CEO Elon Musk today unveiled the "residential roof" -- pegged as a roofing replacement -- with solar energy gathering powers. Unlike other solar systems which must be mounted on top of a traditional roof, these new panels are actually integrated within glass roof tiles, replacing a home's roof, Musk said. And because they're made of glass, Musk says they will last "quasi indefinitely," even in harsh conditions where snow and ice make short work of traditional asphalt shingles. Musk said that 50 years of lifespan should be no problem, and they offer efficiency that is 98 percent as good as a traditional, ugly photovoltaic panel. From a report on The Verge: There are a number of different versions of solar panels: Textured Glass Tile, Slate Glass Tile, Tuscan Glass Tile, and Smooth Glass Tile. Tesla says its glass tiles are much more durable than conventional roof tile -- something that's important in areas with risk of hail.The products are a "joint collaboration" between SolarCity and Tesla, according to SolarCity CEO Lyndon Rive. Tesla is attempting to acquire SolarCity for $2.6 billion and shareholders of both companies will vote on the proposed acquisition in the middle of November. The Powerwall 2 can store 14 kWh of energy, with a 5 kW continuous power draw, and 7 kW peak. The battery is warranted for unlimited power cycles for up to 10 years. It can be floor or wall mounted, inside or outside. It can be used for load shifting or back-up power. Musk says there are three parts to the solar energy solution: generation (solar panels), storage (batteries), and transportation (electric cars). Musk's plan is to sell all three of those products through Tesla.
TENNIS BALL-SIZED HAIL EXPECTED. Take Cover Now (and not under a glass roof, you dingus).
Step 1) Get rich being a middleman for online Beanie Baby auctions.
Step 2) Steal ideas that have been around for decades.
Step 3) Throw giant wads of cash at engineers to turn them into actual products and milk government subsidies in lieu of actual revenue.
Step 4) Manufacture a Jobs-esque cult of personality and nurture a reputation as a "visionary" through a compliant tech media still feeling the loss of their beloved iJesus.
Step 5) ???
Step 6) ABSOLUTELY NO PROFIT!
Hey everyone, make a very expensive roof swap to unproven solar! Do it because Musk said so, even though he fails at everything he does and this solar company probably won't be around in 5 years.
In other words, they've improved it from storing $1 worth of electricity to $1.40. But you still need to cycle it many thousands of times with FREE electricity before it breaks even.
Let me start by saying that I'm very eager for this sort of thing. But not yet, economically. Bless you early adopters, keep it up.
Translation: 137 year ROI.
See that "Preview" button?
Solar panels get weaker over time. Also, solar technology improves a lot over time. And you could get a 50+ year life span roof thousands of years ago. Just ask for copper (hundreds of years ago). Or, nowadays, steel.
So, fit a steel roof on your house. Then add solar panels. When they wear out, replace the solar panels and keep the roof. Done. And I bet done for less.
The esthetics of the new solar panels are incredible compared to standard solar panels! I actually wouldn't mind putting these on my roof at all, whereas with current tech they look ugly and I'd be worried of devaluing my house (plus make it an eye sore).
Only probs is that while everyone knew about solar roofs, one jerk patented it insuring no one would make them. Basically at this point, anything is better than regular shingles even if it doesn't make electricity. If you can find a legal way of doing solar roofs, that saves the customer every 35 years they need to replace.
God spoke to me
"quasi indefinitely," even in harsh conditions where snow and ice make short work of traditional asphalt shingles. Musk said that 50 years of lifespan should be no problem
Europe has buildings with 1000 year old roofs, and it is somehow a little bit amusing to hear 50 years referred to as "quasi infinite".
As long as Musk isn't paying people to install it and paying them to accept the free power, we'll have the Global Warming deniers and their buddies complaining about this...and their lobbyists trying to have it made illegal.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
In other words, they've improved it from storing $1 worth of electricity to $1.40. But you still need to cycle it many thousands of times with FREE electricity before it breaks even.
A quick search shows that the average household electricity usage is about 10K kWh per year (900-ish per month), ranging from 14K in Louisiana to 6K in Hawaii.
Using your numbers, that would be roughly $1000/yr. The powerwall costs roughly $7000 installed with inverter and other extras, or you can lease it for 9 years for $5,000 which includes installation, a maintenance agreement, the electrical inverter and control systems.
Tesla is offering a ten year warranty on the batteries, and there's some discussion about how a battery can last for 3650 cycles (mostly because the 14K powerwall is a 20K battery pack that's discharged much more shallowly than if it was an actual 14K battery, and other tricks).
The total cost comes out to about 0.15/kWh.
"Tentative Conclusion: The battery is right on the verge of being cost effective to buy across most of the US for day/night arbitrage. And it’s even more valuable if outages come at a high economic cost."
How the hell do they connect all those tiles.
It looks like each tile has one photovoltaic cell. To reach an usable voltage for the inverter (350V-700V) you have to connect around 600 to 1200 of these tiles in series! If one connection fails no power from hundreds of tiles. Oh, and good look spotting the error. These connections have to be rated for around 16 Ampere continous power with at least IP65. If you take the standard solar connector (MC4 from MultiContact), 2 for each tile, 1$ per connector, 2000 tiles per roof, you just payed 4000$ in connectors alone for one roof.
Bare contacts from one tile to another won't cut it. It's still a roof exposed to the elements. You will get lichens, moss, leafs, insects, dust in combination with water, wind, snow, ice mixed with some acid rain.
With the nasty habit of DC power for electric arcs, all installed by low-wage workers on top of a flameable material you will get problems. And with problems I mean house on fire.
Tesla unveils a product from another company, with the merger not even approved by its own share holders.
Considering SolarCity is on the brink off bankruptcy with 3.25 billions debt this looks a bit fishy.
The powerwall is all cool-looking and compact, but I don't actually budget a lot for fashion statements in my basic infrastructure.
I see that wal-mart sells "deep discharge marine batteries" that hold about 1kWh for $99. So that's $1400 to duplicate a powerwall's storage. I guess if a powerwall can take over 4X as many cycles as lead acid, it wins. For solar and daily cycling. (My interest is getting through The Big One with a $500 generator that doesn't have to be on 24H a day, so I think the cheaper solution is the win.)
Are they like "magic powers"? Who the hell writes like that? "solar energy gathering powers"...
"Hey Bob, do you want to come over and see my new roof? It's got solar energy gathering powers"...
I think the PowerWall would be most useful with a smart panel that allowed individual circuits to be prioritized in various ways when running off battery power to maximize run time.
Like maybe the lights should be always on, the fridge given a high priority, the dishwasher not on, some circuits which could be cycled off to meet some other intermittent circuit's demand for power, and what order circuits could be killed off to maintain run time for the highest priority circuits.
Of course, most houses aren't wired that sane. Even in parts of my house where new circuits were run from a new panel during remodeling, electricians are prone to tapping whatever's close for power. I demanded a 20A dedicated circuit for the entertainment center, but the junior guy didn't get the dedicated message and tapped it for two ceiling lights and a hallway outlet.
I don't know how totally new construction is done, but I'm guessing its not done in a completely structured way except where code dictates dedicated circuits. But it would be great if there were individual circuits for lights by room, outlets by room, and then various specialty circuits for fridge or other items that should be addressed individually.
Sadly the power companies and lobbyists in Florida are trying to make home solar illegal. and the populace is far too stupid to vote it down.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
The solar power part is nice and all but best part is that now I can finally throw stones inside my glass house! ;)
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
When one or two firemen are electrocuted fighting a blaze this stuff will be gone - or the flipside, no insurance company will cover your home as the fire department will not go up on the roof. Heck, that may happen even with more traditional panels sooner than later.
With earlier model panels, it was sufficient to have a cutoff near ground level as they were not efficient enough to still be a major risk. Apparently not any more. Firefighters are also nervous about going up on a roof that is overweighted.
I am not a fireman but have spoken to quite a few in an effort to make policy for my HOA after we were legally mandated to allow solar installations. Too little thought is put into the many ramifications of solar panels, especially in attached homes.
No solar cell is 98% efficient. lmgtfy: 24.1% is high efficiency:
https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/SunPower-Again-Holds-Record-For-Worlds-Most-Efficient-Rooftop-Solar-Panel
Also, efficient solar panels tend to have shorter lifespans, and their efficiency decays with time in the same way that LED and CFL bulbs get dimmer over time. A good warranty is "80% of rated efficiency after 25 years."
http://energyinformative.org/lifespan-solar-panels/
I see one downside to this, which is heat. Counter intuitively, solar panels are less efficient the warmer they get. That is why solar panel installers always leave an air gap between panels and a roof, to allow airflow under the panels to help cool them. An air gap of 3-5" is recommended. When the panels (in the form of roofing tiles) are laid directly on the roof, not only is 50% of the surface area for cooling lost, but the heat of the attic is also warming them from the below. As anyone who has been on a hot roof in summer knows, roofing shingles get incredibly hot.
This may be offset somewhat by the fact that these shingle style PV cells will cover more surface area of a roof than normal solar panels. However it is definitely a factor, and thus a given square footage of these new tiles cannot be as efficient as the same area of standard PV panels for the heat efficiency factor alone.
Better known as 318230.
By their very nature, solar panels are plates of laminated glass or plastic reinforced with wires running through them.
I.e. It's reinforced the same way bulletproof glass is.
Where conventional tiles shatter into pieces, these tiles merely crack and dent.
And the best part is, each solar plate being an array of parallelly connected cells - it will still function both as a roof tile and as a solar cell.
Whereas a conventional tile would at that point be useful only as gravel substitute.
Guy runs a company which puts rockets into space. Let's give him SOME benefit of the doubt on account of the engineering skills of his employees.
You know... let's assume that they are not exactly TOTAL fuckups.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Here we go again . . . Solar (really good - but expensive) being touted as the wave of the future.
SURE it's good - - - Sure it's Green - - - Sure it's the future of small-scale (home) power
SURE IT's EXPENSIVE
When it drops in cost to the 'average' wage earner level (becoming lower every year) then it will be the right thing to do. Until the rapidly shrinking 'middle class' can budget this technology into their lifestyle, then it's just gonna' be another "Look - I'm Green and Mean" showcase issue for the 10-percenters (not much larger than the 1-percenters), since the income earners are outpacing the 'poor old average Joe' by several percentage points every quarter.
With banks crediting savings at 1 percent (or less), but charging 10 percent (or more) for loans - it doesn't take a genius to figure out that the middle-man is just totally screwed !
Really kinda' sucks, but that's life in the world we live in run by corporations / bankers / institutionalized graft.
redneck geek
Having regular tile sized pieces of glass will be much tougher than windshield sized pieces due to the decreased bending forces and underlying support structures.
..........FULL STOP.
The Tesla glass tile did have multiple cracks after the kettlebell dropped. I doubt it will produce electricty, or much of it after a crack.
I wonder what the weight will be for roof support loads.
..........FULL STOP.
Should be interesting to see how well Tesla fares with this. Dow Chemical put a lot of money behind the same concept (less the battery whose purpose vs. cost seem like they would be difficult to justify) and they gave up the market due both to technical complications of installation/maintenance and poor sales due to low market interest. And that was just a few months ago, so I doubt much has changed: https://www.greentechmedia.com...
I still think it's a great idea though, and would love to put it on my house.
..........FULL STOP.
ECD had solar shingles back in the '90s, and the work Stan Ovshinsky was doing improved both their average productivity and durability significantly while reducing production cost. After he retired though the company went downhill and eventually went out of business. How does the new Tesla offering compare to the Ovshinksky offerings from a decade or two ago?
How does this solution compare to the Solar Frickin Roadways, which are already in production ?
The only downside to these roofs is that they are of higher quality than the homes they would be going on. Most of the houses built these days are slapped together monstrosities that aren't designed to last much past 20 years.
Having gone through a huge hail storm in south central Kansas a few years back I can tell you what to expect. Damage was extensive over a 3 county area taking roofs siding automobiles and windows on the house. The waiting period for me to see an agent with my insurance company was 90 days. They tried to low ball all the estimates they could and fight you in court. The insurance companies pooled their money, so when I went to cash the check for repairs, the bank said they would hold the check for two weeks until it cleared. I ask why and they said sometimes there was money in the insurance pool, sometimes there wasn't. And if it would come to you having skylights on the roof, if you had the wrong policy [one that didn't have a rider for skylights] you would not get coverage for carpet and interior damage.So an expensive glass roof from Elon Musk would require an expensive rider. Any savings in electricity might be offset by premiums waiting for the mother of all hail storms. I have had 5 roofs put on my house in an ownership period of 30 years. I have quit insurance companies because they have dropped total replacement and wanted to do a depreciation policy. So if you want to stand out in your front yard and argue with an adjuster about depreciation on your solar panels be my guest. If you live in Mojave California you might beat the odds, but not everywhere.
Yeah. NUTS.
Nothing new under the sun.
Integrating PV panels into a roof has been done for years. There're even products in the UK that're BBA certified as roofing structural elements.
My house needs three PowerWalls to meet normal peak load.
Utility electric costs me $2,640 per year. There's no way the Powerwall batteries will be even remotely close to cost effective. Add the cost of solar panels to the mix and it's absolutely laughable.
But, I am curious to know what the output of these solar shingles is and how much they cost.
Perhaps future houses would be designed and located so the roofs are more conveniently (optimally) exposed to the sun? Semi-circle like?
4wdloop
Perhaps if we solve the problem of storing "cold" instead of electricity to produce it (cold) on demand then that be cheaper?
Freeze your boiler over?
Granted there is limited use of it: AC and drinks...
4wdloop