Looking for feedback from homeowners of solar panels on roofs

[sumoborac]

Hi Everyone!

My father and I created an amazing roof tile which has solar cells integrated - styleTILE. The idea behind it was to eliminate huge and not very beautiful solar panels on the roofs of residential houses. After 5 years we are finally on the point, where we have our first roof up and running (cca. 30kWp) and it looks... great



Yesterday we started an Indiegogo campaign and it is the first time that we putted styleTILE out in the world (literally - even the locals don't know that the roof is producing electricity ) . I would love to have some feedback from the people who decided to put the solar panels on the roof.

All feedback about the product or campaign will be great so please - share your thoughts on styleTILE with me

There are a few more pictures on my gallery if anyone would like to see them -

Looking forward to see your responses about it

Gregor Pollak Mod note - if you wish to advertise contact user name Jason

[russ]

It gets real slippery when connections are talked about - this looks like a nightmare to me.

Lose one unit in the middle of the roof and what happens.

[Volusiano]

I checked out your website and I'd have to say that I'm unimpressed.

It looks like you're only at the prototype stage and are still trying raise money to get it certified as a real building material and start a production line on it. But your website is woefully lacking of information to help address many obvious concerns that people have. Don't ask people for inputs and money until you've provided enough information yet. There are so many obvious questions that you should have thought out ahead of time and answer in an FAQ on your website first.

Some obvious ones were mentioned in the posts above, I'll add a few more:

1. The tiles look really slippery. How are people going to be able to walk around on the roof surface to do service?
2. The tiles seem to be interlocked all together. How easy is it to remove a single tile for repair/replacement?
3. If a tile's solar cell fails, how is diagnostic done to identify the trouble tiles?
4. There's no information at all about the whole system, how they're connected and work as a system?
5. What does a single tile failure do to the performance of the whole system?
6. What are the projected costs?
7. What is the business model?
8 On and on, there are so many obvious questions that you should have anticipated and answer before asking for money.

So far, all it looks like is a proof of concept.

[SunEagle]

I checked out your website and I'd have to say that I'm unimpressed.

It looks like you're only at the prototype stage and are still trying raise money to get it certified as a real building material and start a production line on it. But your website is woefully lacking of information to help address many obvious concerns that people have. Don't ask people for inputs and money until you've provided enough information yet. There are so many obvious questions that you should have thought out ahead of time and answer in an FAQ on your website first.

Some obvious ones were mentioned in the posts above, I'll add a few more:

1. The tiles look really slippery. How are people going to be able to walk around on the roof surface to do service?
2. The tiles seem to be interlocked all together. How easy is it to remove a single tile for repair/replacement?
3. If a tile's solar cell fails, how is diagnostic done to identify the trouble tiles?
4. There's no information at all about the whole system, how they're connected and work as a system?
5. What does a single tile failure do to the performance of the whole system?
6. What are the projected costs?
7. What is the business model?
8 On and on, there are so many obvious questions that you should have anticipated and answer before asking for money.

So far, all it looks like is a proof of concept.

You missed the question about the integrity of the roof to keep out rain and moisture.

All in all the idea of integrated pv in a tile is pretty cool but the logistics on how the system works and can be maintained are the big questions.

Maybe if these panels were used on a trellis or carport that can be easily reached from the ground instead of a house roof they might have a market.

[Volusiano]

You missed the question about the integrity of the roof to keep out rain and moisture.

Yep, I'm sure I didn't cover all questions, only listed out a few that came to mind like I said.

For sure the integrity of the roof to keep out rain and moisture is an obvious concern. But it's such a fundamental thing that if it can't even keep out rain and moisture, then it's pointless to ask any other questions. The assumption is that it has to be certified and passed as a roofing material before it can even be put on the market.

[Volusiano]

The OP's website painted a story of how his father objected to having to put a brand new roof in (their roof was too old and should be replaced before solar) only to have the solar people drill holes in his brand new roof. I kinda chuckled and asked myself "What's the big deal? People drill holes all over brand new roofs for vent pipes anyway. Won't you have to drill holes for vent pipes with the solar tiles, too?" LOL

In the OP's first post, he said "the idea is to eliminate huge and not very beautiful solar panels of roofs of residential houses". I think this vision is flawed. I bet you not too many people think the current solar panels are ugly. People (myself included) may prefer to have the same roof style as the rest of the subdivision, and just put solar panels on top as needed. After all, the market to install new solar on top of existing roofs is vastly bigger than the market to install customized solar tiles on brand new homes.

The focus of the vision should not be about the aesthetic just because the OP thinks the current solar panels are big and ugly (too subjective to be agreed by everyone). The focus should be about the economics of the savings when combining tiling and solar together into 1 piece. Show people the money (savings) and they'll follow.

[russ]

The number of connections that would be next to impossible to access scare me as much as anything.

[silversaver]

It gets real slippery when connections are talked about - this looks like a nightmare to me.

Lose one unit in the middle of the roof and what happens.

+1 I'm having the same though....

[frizzlefry]

Dow Powerhouse is some kind of long running joke. I was in contact with them about 4 years ago when we were early in construction of our home. If I recall foundation was just poured. They told me they would have something end of 2009. We were a little delayed during our project but when I followed up with them later that year they had no updates. Another year later after we were pretty much done with the house I get an email saying they'll have some news early 2011. Flash forward to now and there still isn't any data on their product.

That's a long time to not have something. I'm calling it vaporware... I mean potentially it could exist but all of the concerns that were brought up are valid.

Sorry to go off topic but these shingles after reviewing the site.. The contacts look a bit sketchy. No way to guarantee the friction/pressure fit will last through thermal expansion and contraction.

[SunEagle]

Dow Powerhouse is some kind of long running joke. I was in contact with them about 4 years ago when we were early in construction of our home. If I recall foundation was just poured. They told me they would have something end of 2009. We were a little delayed during our project but when I followed up with them later that year they had no updates. Another year later after we were pretty much done with the house I get an email saying they'll have some news early 2011. Flash forward to now and there still isn't any data on their product.

That's a long time to not have something. I'm calling it vaporware... I mean potentially it could exist but all of the concerns that were brought up are valid.

Sorry to go off topic but these shingles after reviewing the site.. The contacts look a bit sketchy. No way to guarantee the friction/pressure fit will last through thermal expansion and contraction.

From what I have read the only state that recognized the Dow solar shingles was Colorado. The roof installers had to get a a certification from the state building code to be allowed to install them. Supposedly a number of roofs were installed but I never saw the results of how well the solar shingles performed.

I sent a letter to Dow indicating I would be happy to be a "test" site for Florida since I needed to replace my roof within a year or so. No one ever got back to me and I now have a new roof so the point is mute.

[sumoborac]

Hi Guys!

Thank you for you feedback! Don't know why, but I just received the first mail "Replay to thread" today, so I didn't saw any of your comments until now. So bear with me, I'll go thru each of the posts and quote/replay them today!

Gregor

[sumoborac]

One more thing ... I'm not native US/UK speaker so my English is quite rusty :/ So If I write something weird, please correct me

I personally think that traditional solar panels are not ugly at all. I like the 18 panels standard poly panels on my roof. I also like that they are NOT part of my roofing surface. This keeps the panels cooler in the summer through air circulation. Also, all the wiring and connectors are accessible for servicing.

Ok, the style part is up for discussion! But looking around in my area, most of the PV plants have unused space around the panels so it is clear from far, that there are panels on the roof. with styleTILE most people don't even recognize what they are looking at
Because the styleTILE is the part of the roof one of the "must-be" parts of roof construction is the air-tunnel. With that we get the same air-circulation as with standard panels so the temperatures are quite the same.

To be honest, I am very suspicious about anything that has the name "style" in it. I am a techie and care mostly about functionality and output. Speaking of which, I have yet to find hard data on these solar shingles. A recent internet search returned zero truly useful information about these shingles, even with little to no real-world performance available on the Dow Powerhouse shingles.

And it will be some time before we will be indexed anywhere since this is the first time I put it up on the internet. The real-world performance are only those, I've collected thru last year while the first roof is operational. But so far so good! It withstands up to 120km/h winds, up to 1m of snow (but this is more the substructure problem then the styleTILE problem). This year we had one of the hugest rain-day and there was no leak And the roof is still standing

Having said this, maybe you can enlighten us about the actual performance of this system. How does the system do in various weather scenarios, particularly involving shading and high ambient temperatures. I'd also be curious what parts of that roof of yours are accessible for servicing. Can you access the wiring from the attic? How do the shingles perform if one should fail? Will this reduce the output by affecting certain sections of the roof? What is the actual kW production with certain weather? What surface temps are reached on these roofs? Similar to the 160-170 deg. F on dark composite shingle roofs that I have measured before?

Ok, so here it goes:
The styleTILE roof was made about a year ago, so it doesn't have a long history. But still It is located in Slovenia (North of Croatia, South of Austria), so our Sun index is around 1050W/m2. Our roof is 15° angle and facing South-South-East. The wind/rain scenarios where replied few lines higher. Shading is solved with bypass diode installed in each styleTILE. You can see it in this picture. It raise the cost of the production, but with it, every 4 cells are independent. So every shaded styleTILE will reduce the output around 10W. Same goes for failure. If one of the cells fails, the rest of styleTILEs will still work without problem.
The highest temperature that was measured was 67°C so around 155°F.

I am curious about your experience as an installer but it seems to me that people who are so overly concerned with the looks of traditional PV panels usually care little about much more critical aspects of a PV array.

Yes, that is true. Most PV arrays were build from economical reasons. But the evolution goes on, and why not have a normal roof that produces electricity?

Yes, but it seems you could actually provide that feedback! All I can say is that the pattern is that of solar cells directly applied to the roof. Nice geometrical pattern but that's it. Lots of concerns about lifespan and durability, though. The looks of it alone wouldn't want me make buy it.

The styleTILE is a solar module like any other. The difference is the shape, the connectors and the usability. The rest is the same. It is made from tempered solar glass, 3.2mm thick. It has EVA foil in between and an PPE backsheet. Thats all.

Thank you for all the questions and the feedback

[sumoborac]

It gets real slippery when connections are talked about - this looks like a nightmare to me.

Lose one unit in the middle of the roof and what happens.

I don't see it this way, but ok. Loosing one unit only effects 10W of power. The rest is OK. Each styleTILE has it's own bypass diode.

The connections are maybe a bit frightening but with basic understanding of electricity there shouldn't be any problems.

[sumoborac]

I checked out your website and I'd have to say that I'm unimpressed.

It looks like you're only at the prototype stage and are still trying raise money to get it certified as a real building material and start a production line on it. But your website is woefully lacking of information to help address many obvious concerns that people have. Don't ask people for inputs and money until you've provided enough information yet. There are so many obvious questions that you should have thought out ahead of time and answer in an FAQ on your website first.

Thank you for the feedback. Since no one is perfect I can only learn from my mistakes and try to correct them. I will update the webpage in next few days to include FAQ section. Thank you for the idea

Some obvious ones were mentioned in the posts above, I'll add a few more:

1. The tiles look really slippery. How are people going to be able to walk around on the roof surface to do service?

They are slippery as much as any solar module. Glass is glass no matter how you put it
My experience is that most of the time the styleTILE is walkable surface. In case of bigger angle, there is an easy way for walking with some foam (This is were my English fails :/ - like this: http://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/med...e-foam-bed.jpg) bound around the sho

2. The tiles seem to be interlocked all together. How easy is it to remove a single tile for repair/replacement?

Yes, they are interlocked together with a specially designed male/female connector. The current solution requires a small hand-saw for metal to cut the connector between two tiles. The rest is just some manipulation of the tile to get it in the right position to pull out. The "replacement" tiles have a soft connector, so there is just a simple "plug'n'play" principle. The replacement of one tile is done under 10 minutes, one guy, basic tools and a replacement tile.

3. If a tile's solar cell fails, how is diagnostic done to identify the trouble tiles?

The easiest solution so far is a thermal camera. Because of the bypass diode the "broken" tile has a different temperature.
If there is no option for thermal camera, then there is only "voltmeter" solution. But with some forward thinking when putting the roof up, you can measure the U(oc) of every 2 rows and compare it when the time comes.

4. There's no information at all about the whole system, how they're connected and work as a system?

The styleTILEs are connected with special male and female connector. It's an easy plug'n'play principle, easy to build. At the end, there are two tiles with some cable and standard PV connectors on them. So it is the same as the standard solar modules.

5. What does a single tile failure do to the performance of the whole system?

Every single tile has it's own bypass diode, so the performance is down only by it's value.

6. What are the projected costs?

Currently they are high, because the styleTILE is done manually. But with automation of production, the costs go way down. In the end, there is no reason why styleTILE would be much more expensive than any solar modules. The basic structure is the same. Glass+cells+EVA+PPE. So the current price for a tile is around 30 EUR/pc. Most of it because of the manual work.

7. What is the business model?

Uf... here comes trouble :/ To be honest, I'm a bit lost on this part. There are quite some options for this thing to go forward, and so far, I haven't decided yet.

8 On and on, there are so many obvious questions that you should have anticipated and answer before asking for money.

So far, all it looks like is a proof of concept.

You can say so, but there is already one roof standing. With next spring, we will cover another one. And so far, it all works. styleTILE is not something only on paper but already in usage. For me, this is more then just proof of concept.

[sumoborac]

You missed the question about the integrity of the roof to keep out rain and moisture.

All in all the idea of integrated pv in a tile is pretty cool but the logistics on how the system works and can be maintained are the big questions.

Maybe if these panels were used on a trellis or carport that can be easily reached from the ground instead of a house roof they might have a market.

The integrity is quite perfect. The shape of the module is not something new. It is used for more then 150 years. Usually the tiles are from concrete - http://www.podarimo.si/slike/slika31344771806cpg.jpg
So the rain and moisture aspects are quite covered.