Solar shingles Tesla

In the summer of 2016, one of the founders and the current head of Tesla Motors, Elon Musk, proposed the merger of SolarCity and Tesla Motors. The leader in the installation of solar panels in California, the energy company SolarCity, has been holding a high leadership position for ten years, and today it ranks second in the United States.

And now, before the end of the year, November 17, an effective meeting of Ilon Mask with shareholders took place, the merger was resolved positively, and all that remained was to settle the legal side of this grandiose promising step.

According to the plan of the Mask, in the summer of 2017, consumers will be given the opportunity to buy Solar Roof shingles for their homes. The tile will be a prefabricated solar panel, and in appearance from the ground it will be very similar to ordinary tiles, with the only difference being that the roof will now be able to generate electricity.

If ordinary solar panels from the earth do not look very aesthetically pleasing, then Solar Roof shingles are specially made to look more natural, and each customer can choose the texture to his taste.

The production of four textures is already forecasted: smooth glass, Tuscan glass, textured glass and slate. If you look at the material from above, the solar element will be visible.

Solar Roof Roof Tiles was introduced by Elon Musk on October 28 at a presentation in Los Angeles.

At the moment, it is known that each piece of tile consists of three layers: a highly efficient solar cell, a film with a texture transparent to sunlight, and a protective glass specially developed by the Tesla Motors scientific and technical division. Safety glass is not ordinary glass.

The glass is high-strength, while its density is up to five times lower than that of concrete, that is, Solar Roof tiles will be three to five times lighter than traditional tiles. Another important advantage - a special generating layer - even at high temperatures the efficiency of the element will not fall, and this is the main disadvantage of traditional solar panels.

The technical side is not disclosed in detail, it is only known that the production of glass will be established at the new specialized factory in Buffalo, together with Panasonic.

Mask predicts that the cost of such a roof from a solar tile will be lower than that of a traditional tile roof, and this does not take into account the cost of electricity generated by the "tile" panel during its further operation.

The bottom line is that, according to the developers, solar roofs can be greatly reduced if you abandon intermediaries in the manufacturer-client chain and sell systems exclusively through the company's website. In addition, losses associated with the battle panels during transportation are excluded due to at least the strength of this innovative product.

Even if we consider the cost of the roof from scratch, then in the solar regions of the planet, the Solar Roof tile (as part of the Tesla Solar system) will pay off with the cost of the generated electricity, because this is after all a long-term investment.

In any case, the installation of a particular solar panel system is never cheap, and if you install the system, it must be reliable, aesthetic, effective and durable. All this will be inherent in Tesla Solar systems based on Solar Roof tiles.

At the moment, it is also known that the company’s own development, the Powerwall 2 battery with a built-in inverter, will be used to store electricity received from solar shingles. Capacity of this lithium ion battery It is 14 kWh, it weighs 122 kilograms, and is installed on the floor or on the wall.

The guaranteed battery life is 10 years, the number of charge-discharge cycles is unlimited. The rated power that can be consumed by the battery continuously and safely is up to 5 kW.At the moment, the battery costs $ 5,500, and it will be included in the Tesla Solar kit. By the way, the parameters of this special battery for the house plan to improve further.