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#50 Reply
Posted by
rrinker
on 31 Oct, 2016 23:12
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Of course.... if they actually also provided a superior, stronger, and longer lasting ROOFING material than traditional materials that could offset some of the costs of using them even on shaded parts of the roof compared to traditional materials.
Prediction, Coming in 2017
- Solar freaking FLOOR TILES! Tile your entire house in solar, great for the bathroom/shower too!
- Solar freaking DRIVEWAYS!
- Solar freaking POOLS! Put solar panels at the bottom of your pool, after all it has a built in lens effect to magnify the solar radiation! Hmm that might not be a terrible idea on first thought. I should patent that.
That's it, when I repaint my pool, I'm painting it black instead of blue.
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#51 Reply
Posted by
boffin
on 01 Nov, 2016 02:55
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Everyone is forgetting a most critical limitation to the engineering for ANY solar panel including the Tesla / Solar City ones. This issue alone makes almost all rooftop solar panels completely unviable once you do the actual calculations. And no one ever talks about this.
The issue is, for at least on one evening every year, the weight of Santa's sleigh would obviously crush any solar tiles placed upon the roof. This makes rooftop solar panels impractical.
Now, when Santa finally implements anti-grav, then we can talk about solar again, but until then don't waste your money on an obviously flawed technology.
OMG and that's today OCT(31) = DEC(25) !
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Almost all of the replies here give comments on the engineering viability of these panels. They are mostly correct, and largely irrelevant.
If you look at US homes (and I suspect homes in much of the developed world) engineering evaluations are very far down the list of what makes them sell. Just as an example there are few engineering reasons to differentiate between granite counter tops and tile counter tops. But the vastly more expensive granite counter tops are greatly desired and widely sold here. Since most US owners actually don't own their homes for more than a decade, even the lowly melamine coated counter top competes well on a technical basis.
So the appeal of these solar tiles will be for style, green points, feel good reasons. Not anything related to efficiency, payback time, or even real impact on global warming. They will have to be fairly reliable and repairable, but that is about all from the engineering side. And as many have already pointed out, this baseline design may not meet that need, but I wouldn't bet against the product that actually reaches the market.
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#53 Reply
Posted by
Bud
on 01 Nov, 2016 04:29
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I think after all there may be a problem with installers workforce. This looks delicate technology, and seeing those Chinese roofing crews in my neighborhood coming a dozen people on the roof and doing boom boom boom shooting their nail guns, finishing the roof in no time (with their usual quality issues of course), I cant possibly picture how they can repeat that with solar shingles. Job quality may become an issue, installation may require qualification, maybe even licensing and may be expensive and take longer, this alone will drive average house owners away.
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#54 Reply
Posted by
nuclearcat
on 01 Nov, 2016 04:34
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Probably as Powerwall, they void warranty, as soon as unit are not installed/maintained by certified installer. (at least according TESLA POWERWALL LIMITED WARRANTY (AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND), Jun 21 2016)
I guess same will be for solar roof, it will be pricey (but because of that highly profitable for installer), and logically - well done.
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#55 Reply
Posted by
Brumby
on 01 Nov, 2016 05:16
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OMG and that's today OCT(31) = DEC(25) !
How long have you been waiting to roll that one out?
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#56 Reply
Posted by
dansan
on 01 Nov, 2016 07:30
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I didn't see Elon Musk taking any questions from the audience after his solar roofs announcement. If so, that's probably a good thing, considering the cringeworthy audience questions he got after his recent mars announcement.
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#57 Reply
Posted by
f4eru
on 01 Nov, 2016 08:07
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So the appeal of these solar tiles will be for style, green points, feel good reasons. Not anything related to efficiency, payback time, or even real impact on global warming.
A kitchen typically is a style driven buy which is sold by a guy getting a big comission.
A roof typically is a cost and performance driven item which is proposed by your architect, or builder, which is budget constrained, and tries to get the best performance out of cheaper materials.
Very very very very different things.
The market of styly overpriced solar tiles is a very small one compared to the market of efficient cheap panel solar.
That'S where the marketing of Tesla will fail.
and where others failed :
http://client.dow.com/dowpowerhouse
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#58 Reply
Posted by
jonovid
on 01 Nov, 2016 08:26
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Quote from: CatalinaWOW on Today at 02:40:02 PM
So the appeal of these solar tiles will be for style, green points, feel good reasons. Not anything related to efficiency, payback time, or even real impact on global warming.
A kitchen typically is a style driven buy which is sold by a guy getting a big comission.
A roof typically is a cost and performance driven item which is proposed by your architect, or builder, which is budget constrained, and tries to get the best performance out of cheaper materials.
Very very very very different things.
Tesla Solar Tiles, the solar you have, when you want everyone to think you do Not have solar. gosh that's not hard to do.
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#59 Reply
Posted by
nuclearcat
on 01 Nov, 2016 08:34
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Just because there is plenty of fanboys, he might succeed. They already bought car (but it is really good), powerwall(v1 was not so good, feasibility questionable, but still good sales as they say), why not "solar roof" as well?
Only difference with Apple - world was waiting for proper handheld device, phones were moving to this direction, and Apple iphone has significant innovation in UI.
But, IMHO, solar power not in favor right now, due low oil prices, and he is not much different from solar shingles.
I hope someone do real innovation, rather than just repacking existing technologies in shiny envelope, for example improve nickel-iron batteries with their insane lifetime (30-50 years and almost unlimited cycles), which also much less hazardous to environment and dont need lithium (limited supply and lithium mines are really terrible for environment).
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#60 Reply
Posted by
dekra54
on 01 Nov, 2016 09:55
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As someone who install Photovoltaik Systems nearly every day i think the most important thing is the final cost per Watt and cost per kW installed. Right now in germany it is between 39 to 60 Cents per watt. And about 800 to 1200 Euro for 1 kW installed depending on the type of roof.
But aside from the financial aspect i'm interested what technical solutions they come up with. Especially with the interconnects because apart from a broken inverter a defective connector is the most common reason why i have to climb on to a roof. And i dont Like having hundreds or maybe thousands of connections that are connected on a construction side where are a amount of reasons why such a simple thing can go wrong. Would also be interesting how they tie it to ground
Gesendet von meinem SM-G900F mit Tapatalk
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#61 Reply
Posted by
dekra54
on 01 Nov, 2016 10:38
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As someone who install Photovoltaik Systems nearly every day i think the most important thing is the final cost per Watt and cost per kW installed. .
I'm prepared to believe that is true of Germans, but in Australia it is more likely to be about the feed-in tarrif per KWh you receive for energy supplied to the grid or the rebate on the installation you get from the government.
Sure one depends from the other. At the moment the fixed feed in tarif for self energy use systems is 8.5 to 12.5ct (depending on size) per kWh and for complete feed insystems its much lower. About ten years ago it was abou 50ct ! but the price for the system installed was obviously much higher.
And in germany there is actually no direct public sponsorship for installation, just the fixed feed in tarif for 20 years (at least that i'm aware of).
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#62 Reply
Posted by
b_force
on 01 Nov, 2016 11:15
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Maybe the following is a bit of a party pooper.
But every time I see something about 'reliable energy solutions' I can't help thinking about one thing.
We are simple with WAY to many people on earth.
Even if magically we nail all the problems, reduce the total power consumption AND garbage waste with 50% (which is heaps!)
Currently the world population is growing with a whopping 83 million each year.
If we don't don't anything against it, this means that in 2050 the world population will be around 9.7 billion pooing, farting, wasting, drinking, eating super apes.
Or 11.2 billion in 2100.
The population at this moment is 7.4 billion people.
In other words, we need to cut at least 30% of all waste (in any form) to be even as we are today in 2050.
That also means, we haven't gained anything extra, to 'safe' our asses (not the world, the world will be fine eventually)
There are some ideas and predictions that the growth will go down eventually and even get lower.
Anyway, realistically I don't see how on earth (no pun) we are going to fix 50% of the total waste.
Another thing I don't get is, why the focus is only on this subject, and not the extremely high growth?
I guess because from an ethical point of view it's a difficult subject.
Does this mean all of this is b*llsh*t?
No! As many great scientists already pointed out, there is nothing wrong with making things better, more efficient, more reliable.
On top of that it creates new exciting jobs.
It's only not going to help us in the end......
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#63 Reply
Posted by
f4eru
on 01 Nov, 2016 11:38
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Tesla Solar Tiles, the solar you have, when you want everyone to think you do Not have solar. gosh that's not hard to do.
hmm. So, if i understood you correctly, Tesla tiles are about bragging about a thing that is nearly invisible ?
That's kind of a very very niche market to me.
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#64 Reply
Posted by
f4eru
on 01 Nov, 2016 14:04
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In other words, we need to cut at least 30% of all waste (in any form) to be even as we are today in 2050.
Yes, completely true. The world is overpopulated. Ressources are not lasting. We need to reduce drastically the population, that is the "easiest" measure.
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Lets be clear. Solar roof tiles are nearly invisible. Unless you are a car nut, Tesla roadsters are also nearly invisible. I can't tell you how many times one of my sons has said "There goes a Tesla" and I look around without spotting it. They are smallish, rounded vehicles not greatly different than dozens of others on the road. I need to see the Tesla logo to know what the car is. So bragging rights aren't firmly tied to a flamboyantly obvious product.
The same thing applies in a variety of other fields. Have you ever tried bragging about your new piece of test gear to your significant other or to friends who do not share your avocation?
So I am going to pile on with others and say that the primary market barrier for these is the interconnect problem. If these have magic in this area it isn't obvious.
Those arguing that efficiency or cost is the primary factor are totally ignoring the fact that the best engineering solution to those problems is to make the house smaller. But except for certain fad markets (the tiny house movement, for example) that direction has met little success in most of the developed world. None at all in the US.
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#66 Reply
Posted by
Don Hills
on 01 Nov, 2016 23:38
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Yes, completely true. The world is overpopulated. Ressources are not lasting. We need to reduce drastically the population, that is the "easiest" measure.
Which method do you have in mind to achieve this? Plague? War?
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#67 Reply
Posted by
retrolefty
on 01 Nov, 2016 23:50
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Yes, completely true. The world is overpopulated. Ressources are not lasting. We need to reduce drastically the population, that is the "easiest" measure.
Which method do you have in mind to achieve this? Plague? War?
Well we could always try the "tax what you want less off and remove tax from what you want more of".
I recall from my service days that married Airmen were allowed extra income allotment for each child up to five. Not many had more then 5 but most had more then 2.
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Yes, completely true. The world is overpopulated. Ressources are not lasting. We need to reduce drastically the population, that is the "easiest" measure.
Which method do you have in mind to achieve this? Plague? War?
We, humans, will have to do something about overpopulation eventually, why not start now? I would hope that people that did not want to do anything about it, due to some stupid political or religious agendas, got eaten first when we end up on this planet like a bunch of hungry rats in a metal barrel.
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#69 Reply
Posted by
Marco
on 02 Nov, 2016 04:21
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So I am going to pile on with others and say that the primary market barrier for these is the interconnect problem. If these have magic in this area it isn't obvious.
You could do it inductively.
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#70 Reply
Posted by
Marco
on 02 Nov, 2016 04:56
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One of the times humans experimented with overpopulation and resource depletion on an island they killed themselves, the earth is a large island.
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#71 Reply
Posted by
nuclearcat
on 02 Nov, 2016 06:12
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And thats where Elon Musk "Mars colonization" step in.
Maybe worth to forgive all his mistakes and marketing nonsense, just because he is pushing civilization to right direction.
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Neat idea but every time I hear of this concept I can't help but think of the logistics of installing these. When you setup solar you want each string to be equal number, when you have regular solar panels you might have like 4 or so in a string, so you can group them in groups of 4 in parallel and they'll physically be laid out so wiring them is fairly easy. Basically you look at the whole roof as a blank slate and find the most effective way to place them. There will be dead spaces or what not but you just look at covering the most you can.
With shingles, you NEED to cover the whole roof, including corners where you have to CUT them so they line up with the other side of roof (ex: the peak or the edges of a cottage style roof etc). When you install shingles you start from the bottom and work your way up, and cut any as required. Having to also think of the logistics of which ones are in series with which ones and making sure it's the right number etc... then combining the strings to thicker wires.. just sounds like a logistical nightmare. And what do you do with the ones that you have to cut, these don't look like they're made of materials that are easy to cut, like standard asphalt shingles. Even the ones that don't have the solar cells.
Everyone keeps trying to revolutionize solar but standard setups with regular panels is still the best way imo. For people who have big property having them on the ground is even better as you're not adding extra penetrations(giggity) to your roof and it also makes them easier to access for maintenance such as daily snow removal in winter.
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#73 Reply
Posted by
Marco
on 02 Nov, 2016 08:20
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It wouldn't be too hard to integrate electronics which can combine power from rows of differing number of tiles automagically. Since inductive power transfer is the only reasonable way to transfer power between them you already need electronics any way.
The only raison d'etre of these things is to please home owner associations, hardly a mass market outside of the US.
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#74 Reply
Posted by
tszaboo
on 02 Nov, 2016 12:38
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It does not really matter how much it costs. Or how much extra effort it takes to make. Or how much the efficiency is. Just does not matter.
Regular solar panels work this way: You buy a house. You got extra money later, you buy a solar panel from your pocket money, so you save 50 bucks a month.
Solar rooftop works like this: You go around shopping for a newly built house. After all, you live in the US. There are two houses next to each other. One is with solar roof, the other is without it. You can buy the one without it, you pay x to the bank. Or you buy the other one, and you pay x+10 to the bank, and save 50 a month. Or you put an "ugly" solar panel on your roof, but keep in mind, you are a not one of the cool people anymore.
Solar roof makes sense. You are not going to replace your roof, and install this. Construction companies will adopt, and sell it, because it makes sense, because that is what the people will want. You are not the customer, who has to make the decision. The construction company is. And for them, solar will make more sense.