Here’s How Much Tesla’s Solar Roof Will Really Cost You

Elon Musk announced Tesla TSLA -2.73%’s innovative solar roof system is finally ready for consumer purchase.

As Forbes reported in November, Musk, the largest shareholder in Tesla and SolarCity, gained final approval from shareholders to merge the two companies at a price of about $2.1 billion and bring the world some seriously good-looking solar paneling.

So just what makes this product superior to both old-school solar panels and traditional roofing? Two things: Design and a lifetime warranty.

“Solar Roof complements your home’s architecture while turning sunlight into electricity. With an integrated Powerwall battery, energy collected during the day is stored and made available any time, effectively turning your home into a personal utility,” Tesla explained on its site. “Glass solar tiles are so durable they are warrantied for the lifetime of your house, or infinity, whichever comes first.”

The textured, Tuscan, smooth and slate finishes offered by Tesla allow consumers a small, but meaningful choice with look, something previous solar paneling couldn’t. Its seamless integration into almost any architectural style makes it friendly for homeowners looking to invest in both a new roof and clean energy all at once. Read more…

Here’s How Much Tesla’s Solar Roof Will Really Cost You

Solar panels struggle through lack of cleaning

Serious flaws have been revealed in the management of Palmerston North’s struggling solar farm.

The farm on the roof tops of the civic administration and convention centre buildings is only generating about a third of the returns expected while its panels are lying flatter than recommended and uncleaned.

City council finance and performance committee chairwoman Susan Baty has blasted management for taking three years to report on the problems.

Originally, the farm was expected to generate 118,000 kilowatt hours of electricity per year.

It came close in the first year, dropping back to just over 100,000kWh in the second year, but has generated just 53,997kWh eight months into the 2016-17 year.

General manager for City Networks Ray Swadel presented the figures in a report on how savings from solar generation are well down on projections to the committee’s meeting on Monday.

Earlier projected to save the council $27,000 a year and pay back the $200,000 installation costs within 10 years, the savings so far were just under $12,000 in the first year, nearly $11,000 in the second, and under $6000 to the end of February this year – a total of about $29,000 in its lifetime. Read more….

Solar panels struggle through lack of cleaning

SoftBank and Foxconn help Modi reach his ambitious clean-energy goals, bring cheap solar power to India

Companies led by SoftBank Group Corp. of Japan and Taiwan’s Foxconn Technology Co. Ltd. are bringing India some of the cheapest solar power in the world, helping Prime Minister Narendra Modi reach his ambitious clean-energy goals.

In two auctions this week for renewable-energy power-purchase contracts, bids from companies to supply clean electricity slid to as little as 3.8 cents a kilowatt-hour. The record is sharply below the previous bids around 5 cents and within striking distance of the lowest recorded bids in the United Arab Emirates and Chile as of quarter three of 2016, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

India is already among the most competitive generators of solar power after establishing auctions for capacity that drew capital both from western utilities and from development banks anxious to help Modi clean up his country’s notorious smog. Each new auction over the past two years has helped India’s renewable-energy generators close the gap with the lowest cost fuels such as natural gas and coal, said Shantanu Jaiswal, an analyst for BNEF in New Delhi.

“The low bids leave very little cushion for absorbing any unforeseen expenses, and thus pose a risk for investors and lenders,” Jaiswal said, adding that several new power producers have successfully underbid incumbents to gain entry into India’s rapidly expanding solar market.

In a contest to win contracts for 500 megawatts of solar capacity through a competitive tender, India’s Acme Group quoted 2.44 rupees (3.8 cents) a unit to win 200 megawatts. SBG Cleantech Ltd. — the clean-energy joint venture between Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp., India’s Bharti Enterprises Pvt. and Taiwan’s Foxconn Technology Group — quoted 2.45 rupees to scoop up the remaining capacity, said Sanjay Sharma, general manager at the Solar Energy Corp. of India, the government agency for renewable targets in India. Read more…

SoftBank and Foxconn help Modi reach his ambitious clean-energy goals, bring cheap solar power to India

Tesla’s Solar Roof Is Finally Ready For You to Buy

Tesla is opening up its online store for its solar roof tiles Wednesday, Elon Musk said in a message on Twitter. More details—presumably including pricing—will be disclosed shortly.

Tesla solar glass roof orders open this afternoon. I think it will be great. More in about 10 hours …

Tesla will begin with production of two of the four styles of solar tile unveiled in October: a smooth glass and a textured glass version. The Tuscan and French slate tiles will be available by the end of this year. The company will accept orders from around the world, though the first customers to receive the roof when installations begin this summer will be located in the U.S.

The rooftop shingles are virtually indistinguishable from traditional high-end roofing products, with discreet solar cells embedded beneath a glass surface. From most viewing angles, they look just like ordinary shingles, but they allow light to pass through from above onto a standard flat solar cell.

The pricing and efficiency of the solar shingles will determine whether this is a niche product for wealthy homeowners or a more transformative step for the solar industry, said Hugh Bromley, a solar analyst with Bloomberg New Energy Finance. They’ll be economically competitive if priced similar to traditional roofing materials plus the cost of solar panels.

After Tesla acquired SolarCity in November, Musk said Tesla’s new solar roof product may actually cost less to manufacture and install than a traditional roof—even before savings from the power bill. “Electricity,” Musk said, “is just a bonus.” Read more…

Tesla’s Solar Roof Is Finally Ready For You to Buy

Almost everything you know about clean energy is outdated

“This is a different world from three years ago” — renewables are no longer “alternative energy.”

Bloomberg New Energy Finance chair Michael Liebreich giving his keynote talk at the April BNEF Summit in New York City. Credit: J. Romm

Renewables and efficiency have already won the battle for the future of electricity.

At least, that was the message at the Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) Summit in New York City last week. In his must-see keynote talk, BNEF founder and chair Michael Liebreich explained that if you blinked, you missed the clean energy revolution: “This is a different world from three years ago.”

BNEF has been at the forefront of documenting the clean energy revolution, which continues to be ignored or misreported by major media outlets like the New York Times.

At last year’s summit, Leibreich debunked the myth promoted by Bill Gates and others that we needed a clean energy miracle to solve the climate problem, in a keynote titled “In Search of the Miraculous.” Read more….

Almost everything you know about clean energy is outdated

Elon Musk Says Tesla’s Solar Roof Tiles Have ‘Infinity’ Warranty

The sweet solar roof of the future is getting closer. Two of Tesla’s solar roof tiles will be released to the public in a few weeks, Elon Musk announced in a TED Talk in Vancouver on Friday.

Musk demonstrated Tesla’s glass solar roofs on the set of Desperate Housewives in October when the tiles were first announced. While in conversation with Chris Anderson about Tesla’s solar roofs and the future, Musk clarified that two of the four Tesla Glass Tiles will be released in the coming weeks, and the remaining tiles will come out early in 2018. Details on the specs of the Tesla solar roof shingles haven’t been released yet, but Musk was brimming with confidence about the durability of the Tesla Glass Tiles during the TED talk, and the idea that someday we will all have solar roofs.

While on stage, Anderson asked Musk about the upcoming launch of the Tesla Glass Tiles, and the four different types that Musk demonstrated back in October.

“We’re starting off with two initially and the second two will be introduced early next year,” Musk said.

It’s not yet clear exactly which two tiles are going to be the first on the market first, but all four styles are made of a tempered glass material that allows the roof to look solid from the ground, but be transparent when you’re directly above them. In side-by-side comparisons that Tesla has released before, the tiles look to be seriously tough. And Musk is so convinced in their ability to survive, he told Anderson that the tiles would last basically forever. Read more…

Elon Musk Says Tesla’s Solar Roof Tiles Have ‘Infinity’ Warranty

Harnessing The Power Of The People Through “Value Of Solar”… And Beyond

Fights over rooftop solar are cropping up around the country, with 47 states plus Washington D.C. considering action in 2016 to change solar policies. Net energy metering, a policy in 41 states under which energy generated by customers is credited against the cost of energy consumed from the grid, is the heart of most debates.

In absolute terms, homes, businesses, and factories with net metered solar are getting paid the retail rate for electricity; but many stakeholders question whether this adequately reflects the value of distributed solar.

Utilities often oppose net metering while customers are split, and these debates have boiled over into full-fledged fights in several states. In Arizona, for example, $6 million in dark money from utility and solar groups flowed to support and oppose candidates for the utility regulator. Read more…

Harnessing The Power Of The People Through “Value Of Solar”… And Beyond

How Leading Solar Panels Stack Up Against the Competition

n the battle to win business in the solar industry, solar manufacturers have to find a way to differentiate themselves. Cost and efficiency are two of the biggest differentiators, and in the utility segment, a larger panel size can make installation more efficient as well.

Below, I’ve pulled the data sheet information for solar panels from Canadian Solar (NASDAQ:CSIQ), JinkoSolar (NYSE:JKS), and SunPower (NASDAQ:SPWR). And I’ll show how their products compare from an efficiency standpoint.

How solar panels stack up

There’s generally three types of solar panels: the least efficient, polysilicon; monosilicon; and the most efficient, mono-PERC, for commodity-type construction. Canadian Solar and JinkoSolar have been leaders in building out mono-PERC capacity and are already expanding this product line.

The table below lays out how Canadian Solar, JinkoSolar, and SunPower’s products stack up against each other, based on public data sheets.  Read more…

How Leading Solar Panels Stack Up Against the Competition

As Rooftop Solar Challenges Utilities, One Aims For A Compromise

If you’ve ever wondered what an extreme home makeover looks like for an environmentalist, take a visit to Lance Wright’s garage in south Denver.

He walks past his electric car to batteries near the back wall. “All of this is the devices necessary to control our solar panels,” Wright says.

There are solar panels on the roof above. He and his partner designed the system to maximize energy efficiency. K.K. DuVivier says that means the power moving through the meter is sometimes negative.

“I have a picture of Lance with it going back to zero, because we generated more than we used,” she says.

They get credits from their utility, Xcel Energy, for power they add back to the grid. And they’re not alone.

“Some people have the opportunity to brag about how smart their kids are or how fast their car goes,” Wright says. “Our friends brag about how efficient their house is.”

But that efficiency comes at a cost for utilities: The more energy customers generate for themselves, the lower their utility bill. That leaves less money to maintain the electric grid, utilities say. Read more….

As Rooftop Solar Challenges Utilities, One Aims For A Compromise

Solar Gaining Traction In Oil-Rich Qatar

At the end of March, Qatar Solar Technologies (QSTec) – a joint venture (JV) between Qatar Solar (a subsidiary of Qatar Foundation), Germany’s SolarWorld AG and Qatar Development Bank – announced that the first polysilicon had been produced at its new production plant in Ras Laffan Industrial City, 80 km north of Doha. Polysilicon is a high-purity form of silicon and a key component in a range of solar photovoltaic (PV) technologies.

The factory, which is currently in the final stages of being commissioned, will have an annual production capacity of 8000 tonnes and is expected to start exporting later this year.

Speaking to OBG, Khalid Klefeekh Al Hajri, chairman and CEO of QSTec, said that the plant’s polysilicon would initially be for export to meet global demand for high-purity, Tier 1 polysilicon.

Al Hajri went on to say that he sees the facility’s initial production capacity as just the first phase and expects it to move up to as much as 50,0000 tonnes per annum over time.

The plant has also been designed with sustainability in mind, possessing 1.1 MW of solar generation capacity and waste treatment facilities to recycle excess gases and water. Read more…

Solar Gaining Traction In Oil-Rich Qatar