So my neighbours got some solar panels installed...
So my neighbours got some solar panels installed...
I'm a big fan of solar panels but the alignment could've been better!
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I’d like to believe that we are in a transitional period with solar panels, and soon it will be more common for them to just be an integral part of the roof. However I don’t see much uptake for the companies that have tried offering such products. Has anyone seen a house with integrated panels?
That sounds way more expensive and like it has way more points of failure if you live somewhere that occasionally gets hail, tornadoes, or hurricanes. I can only speak for those locations as that's primarily where I've lived, but I would much prefer my roof to be a roof then to chance anything coming in.
Well yeah I agree that when you try to meld two things into one you generally get something more expensive than both which doesn’t perform as well as either. For something as common and well established as roofing materials, it’s going to be very very hard to beat conventional roofs on price and performance while adding electricity generation. Though to be fair, conventional solar panels probably get ripped apart in a hurricane, too.
My worry is less them getting ripped apart during a storm and more the potential hole they could leave behind due to their destruction. Any hole in a continuous surface is a weak point.
Not gonna happen, house are insanely cheaply built these days.
Needs government regulation to force it, otherwise they'll just do the cheapest thing
There are multiple companies that offer solar tiles (for example: https://terran-generon.com/), but they have lower efficiency, cost more and have more points of failure than solar panels. Another problem is, tiles usually stay on the roof for much longer than the average lifespan of a solar panel and it's much easier/cheaper to replace solar panels than solar tiles (without retiling the whole roof).
I think Elon's SolarCity company did something like that but it failed because of inefficiency of the panels and just expensive to install. To be fair I think having this is better than no solar panels at all. I think this will remain common until those two I mentioned with SolarCity gets resolved.
I agree. I have panels. They’re ugly as shit. But they help.
You will need overhead panels which can be walked upon. They are more expensive. You will also need to provide sealed gaps for thermal expansion.