Solar roofs are now a reality . . . and Tesla is taking orders.
Half a year after Tesla CEO Elon Musk unveiled the company’s energy-generating glass tiles to the world, Tesla began releasing pricing and installation information on its website May 10.
Among the takeaways raising a few eyebrows:
Not all of these tempered glass roofing tiles will contain photovoltaic cells. Given relative latitudes, environmental factors, and individual home energy needs, homeowners will require up to 70% solar tiles, but the average is about 40%, according to Tesla.
The company says a typical homeowner will pay about US$22 per square foot for a solar roof, a price point calculated for a roof with 35% solar tiles.
Is this claim too good to be true? Will Tesla’s solar roofs end up paying for themselves? Consumer Reports ran the numbers for real-world homes, through Tesla’s online cost calculator—see the results for yourself.
“It’s revolutionary in the sense of how they’re incorporating solar — the scale of it,” David Sarkisian, a policy analyst at the North Carolina Clean Energy Technology Center, tells Consumer Reports.
“But it’s not like this suddenly changes everything about your decision on whether or not you should have solar at all. That’s still going to be informed by the same things you would look at for typical solar panels.”
The solar power generation component of the Tesla system is guaranteed for 30 years.
Delivery and installation for 2017 are likely for the continental U.S. only; the United Kingdom and Australia can expect their first installations in 2018.
‘We need to make solar panels as appealing as electric cars,’ says CEO Musk
The answer to this isn’t a simple yes or no.
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