Elon Musk is working on a roof made of solar panels

Elon Musk is working on a roof made of solar panels:

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If you thought Elon Musk was only about Tesla Cars and SpaceX you’d be totally wrong.
Elon’s eco credentials don’t cover only electric cars, his passion for renewables can be seen in one of first business he got involved in. SolarCity, a company that he started and grew rapidly in to a major photovoltaic solar panel installer first in California, than the West Coast, employing some 12000 staff in California, Oregon and Washington, SolarCity is major player when it comes to generating renewable energy.

Elon initially was only involved as investor in SolarCity which was started by his cousins Peter and Lyndon Rive, with Elon taking at first Chairmanship of the company as he was a major financier, however as SolarCity grew so did Elon’s vison of what can be done with the company.

In July Elon finally bought Solarcity for $2.6 billion, using Tesla’s own shares. Many criticized this move as ill-advised and financially very risky as SolarCity was losing money badly due to the downturn in the market. Downturn in one respect caused by sudden increase of photovoltaics systems being installed to a point where cost of the photovoltaic systems came down so much that companies couldn’t make margins, price per KW fell below 50 cents, or marginally profitable for the companies installing the photovoltaic system.

In a way massive success of the photovoltaics in California and west coast states had somewhat negative effect on the future of photovoltaic system installers including SolarCity, however Elon is hoping the new concept he just unveiled might keep SolarCity viable business.

What Elon is proposing is a instead of installing bulky and expensive photovoltaic solar panels which require 31 degree angled south facing roof to produce maximum electricity, system which in fact might weigh in excess of 500kg for 5Kw system.

What Elon is proposing is a whole new approach, instead installing bulky and expensive photovoltaics solar panels, why not simply install new roof, which will have entire photovoltaic system integrated in to the roof and system could generate far more electricity than required by the household, Sell excess to the power companies or even better store in an Tesla Battery, and use excess energy produced during the daytime, during the night time where there’s no sun.

In one fell swoop a house can be off the grid reliant on the system Tesla makes.
The concept would work best with new builds in California, Oregon and Washington State as well as New England (all 6 states) where laws are in place to help and encourage use of renewable sources of energy, i.e. solar and wind.

If SolarCity can secure significant market share in new builds, especially in these 9 states, or roughly some 200 000 homes per year, it would provide significant boost to the concept.