Comments on: Solar Power Tiles for your Rooftop

By: Andy

Andy — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 15:24:31 +0000

Could someone tell me if these tiles are available in Canada. If these tiles are available in Canada who are the certified installers? Please tell me if they work in colder climates or are they only for California and Florida climates.

Andy

By: Seyed Ghozati

Seyed Ghozati — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 12:30:37 +0000

I was involved with such a solar rooftile project in University of NSW in Sydney for 5 years during my Ph.D. study. I know things you don’t know about photovoltaic rooftiles. That project was under Mitsubishi financial support. The fact is it is not easy to have a high efficiency rooftile and with low efficiency you’re throwing your money away.

By: russ

russ — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 21:39:27 +0000

@John Boston – my hot water is 90 degrees C plus – from solar panels – turned off the electric connection on 1 April and will turn it back on in November – just as backup.

When I was working in Qatar we used the hot water heater as a cooler – the cold water from the pipes was too hot to use but with the power to the heater off it acted as a badly needed cooler.

By: John Boston

John Boston — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 21:27:26 +0000

We could use a “dude shemesh” here in Oklahoma. In the summer, we’d have to cool the water down before using it!

By: Brian Hudson

Brian Hudson — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 21:26:47 +0000

I lived in Israel for ten years and there you have a “dude shemesh” which is a water tank on your roof that uses solar energy to give you hot water. They need this here!

By: Charlotte Wolff

Charlotte Wolff — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 21:26:24 +0000

I’m glad the technology is increasing. I also want the dependability and availability to increase and the cost to decrease. When it becomes a part of mainstream use sustainable energy will benefit people and the planet, now too often it benefits mostly the businesses.

By: Justan Olfrend

Justan Olfrend — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 21:25:53 +0000

Now if they could just tie this into a truly smart grid we would be going places… nice start though.

By: justwatching

justwatching — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 18:08:51 +0000

I don’t know where people get the under $2.50 /watt for photovoltiacs but just try and get them under $7.00/watt+ installation hardware.

By: Justan Olfrend

Justan Olfrend — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 14:25:19 +0000

Think bigger… companies working together can accomplish much more for our nation in this time of need than any of them can individually.

By: Justan Olfrend

Justan Olfrend — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 13:41:53 +0000

“Do the power stations want power from your homes? No, but they can definitely use the user trends information and make power available accordingly.”

I would suggest YES… a truly smart grid would optimize the excess energy generated by homes with solar (which many more should have in the Sunbelt) and communicate to those power stations to redirect it in a “smart” fashion to serve areas that are outside of the sunbelt… smart meters are great but unless they actually serve a greater purpose than just lowering my home bill then it is not much of an improvement for the nation as a whole… a company like GE and their competitors can upgrade the infrastructure but these two computing competitors would better serve the nation working together to create a “brain” that can manage the grid in a truly “smart” fashion… a glorified meter reader that communicates with a central processor(s) is more in line with our national need… just sayin’

By: Om Rajbhandari

Om Rajbhandari — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 13:03:00 +0000

For long, I have been thinking if roof tiles should be replace with something to produce solar power, it would be wonderful.

I have a house with about 1000 sq. ft of roof towards Sun. I need about 500 k hour of power to run TV, Refregerator and light for month. If idea works, it will benefit me very much.

Do you have any idea when such tiles would be available in Nepal?

By: Rickie

Rickie — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 10:50:55 +0000

According to PVinsights, solar module price dropped to US $1.7 – $2.1 in July. This price will save a lot of cost in the future. We foresee more and more rooftop solar system installation in the coming two years.

By: geeta

geeta — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 09:29:47 +0000

Sounds great. Are these tiles available in India? Compared to the cost of other roofs what would these tiles cost?

Geeta