{"id":5981,"date":"2016-11-05T08:29:23","date_gmt":"2016-11-05T00:29:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/people.utm.my\/haslinasarkan\/?p=5981"},"modified":"2016-11-11T08:31:20","modified_gmt":"2016-11-11T00:31:20","slug":"the-challenges-for-teslas-solar-roofs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/haslinasarkan\/the-challenges-for-teslas-solar-roofs\/","title":{"rendered":"The Challenges for Tesla&#8217;s Solar Roofs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By <span class=\"author-name\">Andrew Silver<\/span><\/p>\n<div>Posted <label>3 Nov 2016 | 16:30 GMT<\/label><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>This article is obtained from\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/spectrum.ieee.org\/energywise\/energy\/renewables\/the-challenges-for-teslas-solar-roofs?bt_alias=eyJ1c2VySWQiOiAiOWUzYzU2NzUtMDNhYS00YzBjLWIxMTItMWUxMjlkMjZhNjE0In0%3D&amp;utm_campaign=TechAlert_11-10-16&amp;utm_medium=Email&amp;utm_source=Tech+Alert\" target=\"_blank\">here.<\/a><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<p>Last week, Tesla\u2014best known for its electric vehicles\u2014announced its latest product: roof tiles with built-in solar cells. To succeed where other companies have failed, engineers say they must strike a delicate balance among\u00a0cost, aesthetics, safety, and performance.<\/p>\n<p>Widespread adoption would yield\u00a0clear environmental benefits, of course. Solar power could be a way to lower carbon dioxide emissions and combat global warming, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said in a presentation. Musk sees solar roofs as part of his plan for running the world on clean, sustainable energy.<\/p>\n<p>Yet Ronnen Levinson, a mechanical engineer at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab who studies ways to keep roofs cool, points out that \u201cTesla isn\u2019t offering a new idea.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In the past, solar power has had mixed results in the United States. Years ago, the Obama Administration supported the solar power company Solyndra, which went bankrupt in August 2011. Dow Chemical recently tried a solar shingles project that it shut down in July.<\/p>\n<p>Tesla declined to comment for this story. Former Solyndra CEO Brain Harrison and Greg Bergtold, a business advocacy director at Dow Chemical, also declined to comment.<\/p>\n<p>The discernible difference with Tesla\u2019s photovoltaic roofing material, Levinson says, is that the company will offer integrated tiles. Instead of buying a roof, paying for workers to install it, then buying new solar panels and paying for extra labor, you can consolidate the cost&#8211;which could be cheaper. Musk said there are about 4 to 5 million new roofs in the United States every year, with more worldwide, so there is a market.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOver time, every house would become a solar house,\u201d Musk\u00a0said.<\/p>\n<p>During the presentation, Musk unveiled solar-cell glass tiles that could integrate with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tesla.com\/powerwall\">Tesla\u2019s new Powerwall 2 battery<\/a> as well as electric cars. TechCrunch reported that Musk claims the new roofs would last two to three times as long as\u00a0typical 20-year-cycle roofs and be more impact resistant.<br \/>\nThe marketplace challenges\u00a0this product faces, Levinson says, are a mix of different factors: where you are, how much local electricity costs, whether you are buying a new home and new roof or need to replace a worn-down roof, and what the solar availability is. If you\u2019re away from home during the week and only use electricity on the weekends, then storing electricity might not be practical. Also, not all states and utility companies have measures in place that allow homeowners and businesses to sell their excess\u00a0solar energy, negating what would otherwise be an additional financial benefit.<\/p>\n<p>Ang\u00e8le Reinders, an industrial design engineer at the University of Twente in Enschede, Netherlands, works on integrating photovoltaics into infrastructure. She says consumer acceptance might also be difficult to get.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf it\u2019s affecting their building or their daily behavior, people are usually quite reluctant to adapt to that new technology,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n<p>In terms of performance, she wondered why Tesla doesn\u2019t specify what technology the solar cells use or their tested efficiency\u2014Musk has claimed that they achieve 98 percent of the efficiency of traditional solar panels. \u201cI would like to talk with Elon Musk and ask him personally,\u201d says Reinders.\u00a0\u201cYou can\u2019t put something on the market and not say what sort of technology\u2019s in it,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n<p>Rodrigo Ferr\u00e3o de Paiva Martins, a materials scientist at the Instituto de Desenvolvimento de Novas Tecnologias in Caparica, Portugal, is working on thin-film solar cells. He says it\u2019s possible to get a high enough energy efficiency for market practicality.<\/p>\n<p>He begs to differ with Musk, saying that solar shingles are inherently less efficient than traditional solar panels. He notes that\u00a0they can deliver about 3 to 4 percent conversion efficiency. They become\u00a0cost effective at about the\u00a010-percent-efficiency mark, and there\u2019s a way to get there by tweaking the manufacturing process.<\/p>\n<p>When solar cells are made, they are typically put in a mold and heated, leaving tiny holes in the material. By heating the materials at higher temperatures than normal, these holes could be smoothed out, improving efficiency.<\/p>\n<p>Levinson, however, pointed out that efficiency can be a misleading way to think of the cost effectiveness problem\u2014because it is a product of several variables such as location and the local price of electricity.<\/p>\n<p>There could also be various technical and safety challenges.<\/p>\n<p>Reinders says that glass would not be the most insulating material for cold climates and stressed that there would be a tradeoff between performance and the need to\u00a0adhere to\u00a0building code requirements. In the Netherlands, for example, there are rules that spell out what roofing material must be in terms of\u00a0fire resistance as well as being\u00a0non-toxic, durable, and resistant to erosion.<\/p>\n<p>Bj\u00f8rn Petter Jelle of\u00a0the Norwegian University of Science and Technology and SINTEF Building and Infrastructure\u00a0in Trondheim&#8211;who is investigating resilient solar cells&#8211;says it\u2019s important that the new roofs are resistant to harsh weather conditions such as snow, ice, wind, rain, and ultraviolet radiation.<\/p>\n<p>Also, there is a tradeoff between aesthetics and performance. Jelle knows of a man in a city outside of Trondheim who bought curved Chinese solar panels to match the homes of his neighbors, even though they were less efficient than flat panels.<\/p>\n<p>Levinson says it remains to be seen whether the Tesla product will succeed, but Reinders says \u201cthe timing is really well done\u201d with respect to market readiness.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s at least one buyer. Don Weidner, a Tesla Model S owner and founder of Formidable Ventures, says \u201cI\u2019m blown away by how good they look.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He says he just moved into a new house in 2015, but assuming Tesla lives up to Musk\u2019s\u00a0promise regarding the cost for new roofs, \u201cthe very next time I move or build or need a roof, I would absolutely\u201d buy one.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Andrew Silver Posted 3 Nov 2016 | 16:30 GMT This article is obtained from\u00a0here. Last week, Tesla\u2014best known for its electric vehicles\u2014announced its latest product: roof tiles with built-in solar cells. To succeed where other companies have failed, engineers say they must strike a delicate balance among\u00a0cost, aesthetics, safety, and performance. Widespread adoption would [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6477,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/haslinasarkan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/haslinasarkan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/haslinasarkan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/haslinasarkan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6477"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/haslinasarkan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5981"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/haslinasarkan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5981\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/haslinasarkan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/haslinasarkan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/haslinasarkan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}