Tesla Solar Roofing

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Yeah, my payback would take a while too. I use around 170kwh per month.

That's really low... What do you do to get it so low? How big is your house?How many occupants?


And... congratulations on excellent electric management
 
Be careful when comparing household electric use, some folks have gas appliances. A household with a gas hot water heater and gas stove is going to use a lot less power than one with electric appliances. My consumption is way up during shoulder season (late fall/early spring) as I stop burning wood and switch to a minisplit for heat.
 
I have gas appliances, as mentioned above. My electric refrigerator is only as few years old. The old fridge used 90 kwh a month alone. We wash dishes by hand. The house as about 1400 sq ft. 3 of us. I think a lot of the savings is due to the layout. Most of the activity is focused in 3 rooms. So, lighting, etc is shared. I worked hard on insulating and air sealing so AC isn't much of an issue in summer.

When something odd happens, like crazy rain and basement flooding the dehumidifier really spikes usage.
 
I'm rather impressed with the price, even with the caveats woodgeek brought up.

The economics are still tough in a lot of areas though, even when factoring in alternative asphalt roof costs. You'll notice they don't compare the cost of a conventional solar install on a conventional roof.

If you want a tile roof, however, it looks promising.
 
Good point. The Tesla roof is a premium roofing method.

How are these tiles made? Are they laminated or is there another method used to bond the solar cell to the tile? If laminated I have concerns about delamination over time with the heat that a roof sees. This may take 10-20 yrs to start showing up.
 
https://www.yahoo.com/tech/tesla-finally-begun-manufacturing-solar-025900694.html A little later than expected.

I really hope the price is per square of roofing(100 square feet of installed surface) instead of per square foot of roof. ;)

Heck if the warranty is good enough maybe I will just install the roofing and not worry about hooking it up. GIven my north roof has little or no sun exposure I would need to do that to get a matching roof anyhow.

I suspect that the stated roofing cost somehow is subsidized by solar production credits. I also wonder if that is installed cost including wiring as I would expect that Joe the roofer is going to take a lot longer to install it than conventional shingles. I would love to see some technical data sheets on the interconnecting wiring, that has been the bane of prior solar shingles, lots of small wires having to penetrate the roof membrane is recipe for roof leaks and unhappy electricians working in attics to make the wiring neat. I knew someone who wired up an early PV solar roof in CA, they did the first one and refused to do any more due to the amount of time spent in an attic.

I think I will let the early adopters be the guinea pigs on this one.
 
https://www.yahoo.com/tech/tesla-finally-begun-manufacturing-solar-025900694.html A little later than expected.

I really hope the price is per square of roofing(100 square feet of installed surface) instead of per square foot of roof. ;)

Heck if the warranty is good enough maybe I will just install the roofing and not worry about hooking it up. GIven my north roof has little or no sun exposure I would need to do that to get a matching roof anyhow.

I suspect that the stated roofing cost somehow is subsidized by solar production credits. I also wonder if that is installed cost including wiring as I would expect that Joe the roofer is going to take a lot longer to install it than conventional shingles. I would love to see some technical data sheets on the interconnecting wiring, that has been the bane of prior solar shingles, lots of small wires having to penetrate the roof membrane is recipe for roof leaks and unhappy electricians working in attics to make the wiring neat. I knew someone who wired up an early PV solar roof in CA, they did the first one and refused to do any more due to the amount of time spent in an attic.

I think I will let the early adopters be the guinea pigs on this one.

They make 'matching' tiles for northern rooves that look the same but contain no PV. I think they are cheaper.
 
They make 'matching' tiles for northern rooves that look the same but contain no PV. I think they are cheaper.
Yes, or for shade areas on the rest of the roof. Or if you just want less or can only afford so much solar.
 
I understand the concept but for the vast majority of homes, at least 50% possibly up to 75% will be blank panels. The question is, will be durability of the blank shingles be equal to the shingles with PV?. I dont see a lot of folks ripping blank shingles off to add more PV at a later date so expect for most its put in the PV they can afford up front.

The prior claims were the solar roof was going to be a "lifetime" roof. If I can get an installed "lifetime" roof cost competitive with conventional roofs then the solar aspect is a great bonus but I suspect its not that clean. My belief is that some of the ongoing long revenue or tax write offs are being used to buy down the stated competitive with a standard roof claim.

I guess when and if the US technical and commercial details are released to the public I guess we can talk rationally but to date I havent seen anything beyond optimistic press reports and releases.
 
My concern is how well they stand up over time. Musk can make grand claims and labs can attempt accelerated aging, but sometimes the real world results are not as convincing.
 
I saw some of original stick on flexible panels at an installation once, it wasnt pretty, the plastic had turned milky and was peeling off the substrate and left a gooey deposit where it peeled off. The only option was to install a new roof.
 
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My concern is how well they stand up over time. Musk can make grand claims and labs can attempt accelerated aging, but sometimes the real world results are not as convincing.
Especially true when talking about Musk and Tesla. His strategy has always been to promise the Moon, grab headlines, and then figure no one will notice when he is forced to adjust downward months later. Examples:

1. The first roadster.
2. Production numbers that have ended up being less than 1/10th of initial promises on the model 3.
3. Everything about the hyper loop.
 
marketing - if you say it long and loud enough repetitively it becomes accepted as reality, even if it isn't.
When I was a whipper snapper the Earth was going to be a frozen dead zone by now.- Now ,of course, I am going to be vaporized by global warming or the great cauldron out west blowing up. But then I am a old contrary sob so I am still here.
 
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Eh, I was thinking that the hot spots/calderas are nothing we can do anything about, so why worry.
 
Eh, I was thinking that the hot spots/calderas are nothing we can do anything about, so why worry.
Fear not: Nasa's ambitious plan to save Earth from a supervolcano.

Instead Nasa have conceived a very different plan. They believe the most viable solution could be to drill up to 10km down into the supervolcano, and pump down water at high pressure. The circulating water would return at a temperature of around 350C (662F), thus slowly day by day extracting heat from the volcano. And while such a project would come at an estimated cost of around $3.46bn (£2.69bn), it comes with an enticing catch which could convince politicians to make the investment.
“Yellowstone currently leaks around 6GW in heat,” Wilcox says. “Through drilling in this way, it could be used to create a geothermal plant, which generates electric power at extremely competitive prices of around $0.10/kWh. You would have to give the geothermal companies incentives to drill somewhat deeper and use hotter water than they usually would, but you would pay back your initial investment, and get electricity which can power the surrounding area for a period of potentially tens of thousands of years. And the long-term benefit is that you prevent a future supervolcano eruption which would devastate humanity.”​
 
Dont laugh too hard, its viable technical solution. Kind of tough from a PR point of view.
 
Yeah....the thing about geothermal currently in use is that is not sustainable...they are mining out fossil heat faster than it is getting replaced.
 
Depends on the field and the drilling method. Iceland, New Zealand and a couple in the Caribbean dont have the drop off like many in western US, it depends on the geology. The speculation is that most geothermal fields are currently harvested like old oil wells, drill a vertical hole down in the ground and then circulate fluid or maybe get radical if the field is porous and have one high pressure reinjection well feeding a couple of vertical holes. The new concept is use the method used in old oil fields to recover more oil, drill one vertical shaft and then have multiple horizontal strings running in a star pattern out into a much large area of the field.
 
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