These kind of solar panels start to become common in the Netherlands for new houses. A big downside is fire safety. If there is a fire in the attic, the integrated solar panels make it next to impossible for the fire brigade to put the fire out. They basically have to use an excavator to tear the roof off.
Is there something specific to solar tiles with the fire issue? Surely any solar panels on a roof represent high voltages and high power as a safety hazard when there is an emergency.
The problem there is not solar panels are combustible, but that they severely compromised the fire rating with this installation.
Such houses have internal fire walls right up to the roof line, and normally a fire goes straight up, but with panels mounted like that, flames funnel sideways and ignite the next roof cavity.
Someone’s goofed there.
Nobody mentioned combustibility, although nctnico's suggestion of EPDM might be an issue there. The problem is the panels are producing power, inhibiting the ability of the emergency services to take action, during daylight hours. Breakers don't help when you have to attack the panels themselves, to get them out of your way. Breakers are generally pretty useless in emergencies anyway, as the responders won't know where they are.
Whether you have ceramic tiles, ceramic and solar layered tiles, or ceramic tiles with secondary panels doesn't seem like its going to change the combustibility issues all that much. Very little of the solar kit's content is things like combustible insulation. When I see the remnants of a house fire the roof generally looks like it remained in place until the rafters burned through to the point of the roof collapsing inwards. I can't see any kind of panel changing that much.
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