![]() ![]() When those kick in, a Colorado homeowner would save a total of $2,600 over 30 years-about a 2.5 percent return on the initial investment. That does not figure in an additional $7,000 for a Tesla Powerwall battery (to store extra power)-nor the tax savings. He says he calculated that a Tesla solar roof generating the same amount of power for a similar-size home would cost $26,700. It also includes the federal investment tax credit that currently gives homeowners a one-time credit-usable for directly paying off income tax-equivalent to 30 percent of the total cost of buying and installing solar power.įor example, equipping a sample Colorado home with traditional solar panels generating 5.6 kilowatts would have cost $16,408 without the federal tax credit savings in 2016, says Ran Fu, senior analyst at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, Colo. Tesla offers a price calculator that purportedly accounts for how much sunlight reaches a home’s location the house's square footage and number of floors the average monthly utility bill and the percentage of solar tiles in the overall mix. “Once you have high volume, you can sell it at a lower price. “Tesla has a track record of announcing something and then selling it to the luxury market at the beginning,” Cinnamon says. Still, he expects to see costs come down if Tesla and other companies can ramp up sales and production in the next five to 10 years. That pricing is more likely to attract customers paying for new home construction in the luxury market rather than average homeowners reroofing existing houses, Cinnamon says. There is a lifetime warranty for the glass tiles and 30 years for the cells embedded in them. Tesla says the preliminary price for its solar roof comes to about $22 per square foot based on the expected mix of solar and ordinary tiles or about $42 if only solar tiles are used. The company's moves may have benefited from timing the cost of manufacturing solar cells has dropped by 60 percent in the past decade. Tesla also finalized a solar cell–manufacturing partnership with Panasonic in December of the same year. But Tesla is charging in, officially acquiring SolarCity, a developer and installer of solar power for residential and commercial customers, in November 2016. ![]() Companies that previously tried offering rooftop solar tiles have stumbled over steep manufacturing costs and more operational glitches than traditional panels. Credit: TeslaĮxpense certainly does cloud the issue. “Everybody would love to have that if the price is not high.” Tesla's rooftop solar panels are designed to withstand hailstones traveling at 100 mph. “What Tesla has done is to make the shingles blend in with the rooftop," says Barry Cinnamon, founder of Cinnamon Solar, a home solar installation company that is unaffiliated with Tesla. But the allure of going green and saving money is not always enough for those who dislike the sometimes clunky look of traditional rooftop solar panels. homeowners sell excess solar power back to utility companies. Home solar energy appeals to both environmental concerns and the desire to “get off the grid,” and metering laws also let U.S. Technical details are scarce, but experts say the tiles appear to rely on the latest solar cell technology wrapped in a package that attempts to be more aesthetically appealing than standard-issue home arrays. The design costs more than the solar panel assemblies already perched atop many homes, but the company hopes the tiles’ slicker aesthetics-they come with choices like “textured” or “smooth”-will win over reluctant customers. Tesla says the tempered glass tiles let light reach the solar cells embedded within them but can take a hit from a hailstone traveling 100 miles per hour. This summer Tesla aims to begin installing solar cell roof tiles that look and act like ordinary shingles. homeowners harness the power of sunlight. But the Silicon Valley entrepreneur and Tesla CEO could soon make a very real impact in a much-nearer future-and much closer to home-simply by helping U.S. Elon Musk has built a formidable personal brand on futuristic visions of driverless cars and space travel. ![]()
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