Solar Power dakpannen

[Cees Binkhorst]

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

Het nieuwste: Solar Power dakpannen (of andere vormen van gebruikelijke
dakbedekking).
Op de getoonde foto een 30x10 (ongeveer, moeilijk tellen ;), die 2400 KWh
zou leveren.
Dit kon wel eens heel groot worden, een eenvoudige vervangingsmarkt en
bijna iedereen kan het zelf installeren.

Groet / Cees


http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/27/business/27novel.html
September 27, 2009
Novelties
Solar Power, Without All Those Panels
By ANNE EISENBERG

THE main way for homes to harness solar power today is through bulky
panels added to the rooftop or mounted on the ground.

But companies are now offering alternatives to these fixed installations,
in the less conspicuous form of shingles, tiles and other building
materials that have photovoltaic cells sealed within them.

“The new materials are part of the building itself, not an addition, and
they are taking photovoltaics to the next level — an aesthetic one,” said
Alfonso Velosa III, a research director at Gartner and co-author of a
coming report on the market for the new field, called building-integrated
photovoltaics.

Companies are creating solar tiles and shingles in colors and shapes that
fit in, for example, with the terra cotta tile roofing popular in the
Southwest, or with the gray shingles of coastal saltbox cottages.

SRS Energy of Philadelphia is making curved solar roofing tiles designed
to blend in with Southern California’s traditional clay tiles, said Martin
R. Low, the chief executive of SRS. A solar tile system that met half the
power needs of a typical California home would cost roughly $20,000 to
install after rebates, he estimated, or about 10 to 20 percent more than
solar panels providing comparable power.

U.S. Tile of Corona, Calif., a maker of clay tiles, will be selling SRS’s
Solé Power Tiles, initially in California, and then in Arizona, New
Mexico, Texas and other states, said Steve Gast, the company’s president.
It will be taking orders perhaps as early as November for shipment in
January, he said. SRS Energy buys the photovoltaic cells that cover its
roofing from United Solar Ovonic, a maker of flexible solar modules that
is based in Rochester Hills, Mich. SRS bonds the silicon cells to the
curved Solé tiles, which are made of the same basic material as car
bumpers, said J. D. Albert, director of engineering at SRS.

The cells have been installed at several demonstration sites, including a
home in Bermuda Dunes, Calif. Rather than creating an entire new roof with
the solar tiles, the homeowner, Bill Thomas, a roofing contractor, chose
to insert them in his existing roof, replacing about 300 square feet of
terra cotta tiles; the job took about four hours, he said.

The solar insert in the roof will generate about 2,400 kilowatt hours of
electricity a year, enough to cover a quarter to a third of a typical
electric bill, Mr. Albert of SRS said.

A different solar material for the roofs and sides of buildings is being
produced by Global Solar Energy of Tucson, Ariz. Atomized layers of a
photovoltaic coating called CIGS are deposited in layers on a thin sheet.

“We provide the film, and other companies like Dow take it and design it
into a product,” said Timothy Teich, vice president for sales and
marketing.

Crystalline photovoltaic cells, the same type as in fixed panel
installations, are used within the ceramic tiles available from, among
others, the Italian company System Photonics. The cells are held in place
and sealed from moisture by a clear plastic protective layer made by
DuPont, said Stephen L. Cluff, DuPont’s global business director for
photovoltaic encapsulants. The tiles come in 13 colors.

Mr. Velosa said installation of built-in solar power was just starting in
the United States, where the bulk of the installations were still
experimental. But that will change, he said, because “we are seeing that
the construction industry has realized that energy-efficient buildings are
an opportunity for growth.”

Paul Markowitz, a senior analyst at NanoMarkets L.C., a research firm in
Glen Allen, Va., agreed that the market for the building-integrated
products looked promising. But he said that much would depend on when the
construction and real estate markets began to recover. The best time to
install the photovoltaics in terms of cost and design is during building
construction, he said.

Akhil Sivanandan, a research analyst in Madras, India, for the consulting
firm Frost & Sullivan, said that government subsidies would speed adoption
of building-integrated photovoltaics in the United States, as they already
have in Europe.

“You need government incentives,” he said. “Even with drops in pricing and
advances in technology, it is still too costly.”

In France, Germany and other countries, building-integrated solar markets
are growing quickly because of subsidies and programs that pay homeowners
for the electricity they generate and feed back to the power grid, he
said.

“In Europe, building-integrated photovoltaics already make up about 3 to 4
percent of the total solar market,” Mr. Sivanandan said, adding that the
incentives help homeowners in repaying the systems’ costs in five to seven
years.

But one other quality will be crucial to the popularity of
building-integrated solar cells, Mr. Velosa said.

“Aesthetics is key,” he observed. “They have to look good.”

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