Could Solar Roof Tiles Become The New Normal?

Tesla became well-known for their electric vehicles. The next step in their journey was the Powerwall, a home-installed battery to store energy not only for a customer’s home, but their vehicles too.

The Solar Roof completed the trifecta, from energy collection, storage, to usage.

As is often the case with next-generation technology, Solar Tiles themselves are far from a new concept.

But how useful will this really be, and how has it fared so far?

The concept of a solar roof is almost obviously attractive. Look out over your village, town, or city. How much of that space is filled by grey roofing? What is all of that space really doing?

Solar panels in general are attractive for the same reason: a lot of empty space doing not much more than being grey and directing rain. Panels have proven their worth since the beginning – so much so in fact that incentives for installing them have been steadily declining; the value they offer is alone enough to sustain growth.

So the next question would be “what do solar tiles offer that solar panels don’t?”.

Aesthetically, the difference is immediately apparent. Since the solar cells are built directly into the roof itself, you might never realise it’s a solar roof at all. And that seems to be the biggest selling point, since solar tiles are in general less energy efficient than full, traditional solar panels.

Their full integration into the Powerwall is perhaps just as big a selling point. For Tesla drivers in particular, a complete system of Solar Tiles to Powerwall to Tesla is likely to become increasingly popular.

And unsurprisingly, they’re not cheap. So a full replacement of an existing roof is probably not going to be a consideration for many people. But for new developments, and roof replacements that need to happen anyway, solar tiles could certainly make their way into common use. Slowly but surely.

As for how they’re actually selling out in the real world, it’s hard to give any reliable figures. What we do know, however, is that they have been consistently selling out and as of writing, are currently not offering any new sales. So whatever their own targets for this project are – they’re hitting them.