Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
Well, the man who has made billions with a “b” by sponging off of your taxpayer dollars, the man you can always find face-down at the government trough, is at it again.
Elon Musk now says that his whiz-bang glass solar roofing shingles will be, get this, cheaper than a “normal” roof, viz:
Musk told the crowd that he had just returned from a meeting with his new solar engineering team. Tesla’s new solar roof product, he proclaimed, will actually cost less to manufacture and install than a traditional roof—even before savings from the power bill. “Electricity,” Musk said, “is just a bonus.”
If Musk’s claims prove true, this could be a real turning point in the evolution of solar power. The rooftop shingles he unveiled just a few weeks ago are something to behold: They’re made of textured glass and are virtually indistinguishable from high-end roofing products. They also transform light into power for your home and your electric car.
“So the basic proposition will be: Would you like a roof that looks better than a normal roof, lasts twice as long, costs less and—by the way—generates electricity?” Musk said. “Why would you get anything else?”
Make no mistake: The new shingles will still be a premium product, at least when they first roll out. The terra cotta and slate roofs Tesla mimicked are among the most expensive roofing materials on the market—costing as much as 20 times more than cheap asphalt shingles.
Much of the cost savings Musk is anticipating comes from shipping the materials. Traditional roofing materials are brittle, heavy, and bulky. Shipping costs are high, as is the quantity lost to breakage. The new tempered-glass roof tiles, engineered in Tesla’s new automotive and solar glass division, weigh as little as a fifth of current products and are considerably easier to ship, Musk said.
First off, glass is heavy. I’m not buying for one minute that they would be cheaper to ship than asphalt shingles, for example. And I can guarantee you that the “quantity lost to breakage” will be greater than with asphalt shingles. If our cell phones have taught us anything, it is that even the toughest “Gorilla Glass” is still … well … glass. So the first conclusion is that for Elon, a “normal” roof is either slate or terra-cotta tile … hey, he’s one of the elite, cut him some slack, he likely hasn’t lived in a house with an asphalt shingle roof or an aluminum roof in a while …
Will Elon’s roof be lighter than terracotta? Perhaps … but at this point we only have his word. But in any case, I greatly doubt that the largest cost of a slate roof is shipping … digging the slate out of the ground is a major cost.
Next, he’s conveniently omitted the cost of the batteries you’d need to make the system work, as well as the inverter. His 14KWhr “BerlinWall” batteries, or whatever they’re called, are far from cheap at $5,500 a pop … even if you can get by with only one battery, it is still more expensive by itself than a 40-year asphalt shingle roof. And if he is worried about breakage when shipping terra-cotta, shipping those babies won’t be either cheap or easy.
Also, he’s blowing smoke about lifetime. An asphalt shingle roof replacement will last forty years and cost something like $3.80 per square foot. A slate roof replacement will cost about five times that. Musk is claiming his solar panels will last longer than slate??? … how on earth would he even know if that were true? And what lasts longer than slate, it’s freakin’ stone, for heaven’s sake.
Next, firemen hate rooftop solar for a good reason. Think about having to punch a hole into a roof to get inside when the rest of the house is on fire … you do NOT want to be punching through glass solar panels hooked up to an inverter and a giant battery. In fact, if such a house is on fire, the battery is both a toxic hazard and an explosive hazard, while the roof is a no-go zone …
And because that is the case, your insurance costs will go up, something you’d never even consider with a normal roof.
Next, these solar shingles will be much more difficult to install, and thus much costlier, than a regular roof, involving electricians, special installers, and other high-priced folks.
Finally, the cost of solar panels has fallen to where it is now about a buck a watt, which works out to about $15 per square foot just for the panel itself. This raw material cost is more than the INSTALLED cost for slate roofing. And while Musk might reduce that, I’d be shocked if he cut it much. In fact, if Musk could reduce the square-foot cost of solar panels, why is he not making panels themselves with his new glass technology? I leave the answer to the reader.
Net result? It’s the usual story. When Musk’s lips are moving he either counting how much money he has screwed out of the American public, or he’s lying about his upcoming products … the only good news is that with the new Administration, we can only hope that his long gravy-train ride is over.
However, he is a very, very smart man, so I wouldn’t be surprised to find him cozening the public out of yet more money before he runs out of suckers. Nobody ever lost money underestimating the intelligence of the American greenoisie, and Musk has made a science out of playing to their worst fears.
Finally, do electric cars have an economically viable role to play in our transportation system? My answer, which may surprise some, is yes, quite possibly … but we should not make some guy insanely wealthy by subsidizing sparky cars which are NOT economically viable. If Musk is so damn smart, then let him prove it in the marketplace like anyone else. The government should not be in the business of supporting one solution over the other, no matter how wonderful the government’s intentions are, no matter if they are liberal or conservative, no matter what good outcome they blithely predict.
The solution is simple, and might even start soon. It is to
STOP SUBSIDIZING INEFFICIENT TECHNOLOGIES THAT ARE NOT READY FOR MARKET!!
Regards to all,
w.
My Usual Request: Misunderstandings start easily and can last forever. I politely request that commenters QUOTE THE EXACT WORDS YOU DISAGREE WITH, so we can all understand your objection.
My Second Request: Please do not stop after merely claiming I’m using the wrong dataset or the wrong method. I may well be wrong, but such observations are not meaningful until you add a link to the proper dataset or an explanation of the right method.
The Math: At present, Musk has received $4.9 billion dollars in taxpayer subsidies. In return he has delivered cars that are so expensive that the wealthy buyers of such cars get their own personal subsidy in the form of a tax deductions.
At this point, are we supposed to say “Thanks, Elon”?
Meanwhile, in the developing world, WWFA says a village-sized water well costs about $8,000 to put in … so the money we’ve wasted on Musk and his sparky cars would buy clean water wells for more than half a million developing communities.
I doubt that folks in those communities would say “Thanks, Elon” if they knew about that Faustian bargain …
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A major mistake in this piece is thinking that the reporter writing the article is correctly interpreting or reporting exactly what Musk said. It is unfair to call a man a liar for things he may not have said — he is not directly quoted. (Someone we know here has a “rule” about this.) There are two quotes in the article, neither of them any where near false — one contains opinions:
“Electricity,” Musk said, “is just a bonus.”
“So the basic proposition will be: Would you like a roof that looks better than a normal roof, lasts twice as long, costs less and—by the way—generates electricity?” Musk said. “Why would you get anything else?”
The comparison to other roofing is NOT to cheap asphalt shingles (whose lifetime is estimated to be 20, not 40, years), but to terracotta and slate. I am willing to give Musk a little leeway, as he is making a sales pitch….
California and the entire southwest is covered with homes with real or fake Spanish-era red tile roofing, which in some cases is required by building codes or neighborhood covenants. [There are other products that imitate terracotta. ] I lived in a home with red tile roofing in my youth, and we boys were absolutely forbidden to go aloft and risk cracking any of the roofing. Real Mission-style tiles are fragile, when shipped, many in each delivered pallet arrive broken (by my own eye-witness account) , builders take this into account when ordering. Many are broken during installation. some crack after a single season in the sun and have to be replaced, by experts.
Slate, by the way, does not make terrific roofing. It cracks, then it leaks, it is difficult to repair — it takes an expert to work on a slate roof. I knew men who lived quite well on this fact alone, as their fathers and grandfathers had taught them the slate roofing trade in their early years. Slate roofs are quaint and in some places required by historic preservation laws….otherwise they would be ripped off and modern materials used — I would have done so if I had intended to live a whole life in our slate-roofed home.
As for Musk’s other endeavors….I stood last year on the edge of the Cape Canaveral Barge Canal and watched as a SpaceX first-stage rocket flew itself back to Earth and landed itself on its tail at Cape Canaveral Air Station, less than a mile from where I was standing with my family. Hardly the result of flim-flam.
I particularly like this part: “Next, firemen hate rooftop solar for a good reason. Think about having to punch a hole into a roof to get inside when the rest of the house is on fire … you do NOT want to be punching through glass solar panels hooked up to an inverter and a giant battery. In fact, if such a house is on fire, the battery is both a toxic hazard and an explosive hazard, while the roof is a no-go zone …” I guess the author rejects rooftop solar of all kinds (Anthony, take note, your solar installation is a toxic and explosive hazard…)
I have been a volunteer fireman…and all homes have hazards, particularly garages with cars, gasoline, lawn chemicals and who knows what … solar panels and their batteries/inverters do not add substantially to these risks.
I have to wonder what all the strong negative emotion is really all about.
Kip, it also begs the question of replacing shorted or open-circuit tile failures and their associated troubleshooting. This is method fails the Occam’s razor test bigtime.
Pop Piasa ==> I don’t know, W. doesn’t know, and we won’t know anything useful about that until we see a clearer description of the proposed system — I like to remain unconvinced (either way) until I’ve read product spec sheets, installation manuals, and repair manuals.
In the end, it is the, marketplace that will decide. There have been terrific ideas that failed i the marketplace, and lousy ideas that succeeded….one just never knows.
The current “system” is put on a roofing system (whatever is in the plans) then cover that with solar panels on all south and west facing surfaces, with no real forethought as to the interface. Sensible for retrofitting, not so good for new construction.
“Meanwhile, in the developing world, WWFA says a village-sized water well costs about $8,000 to put in … ”
About 8 years ago, My wife and I managed a humanitarian project that installed 500 clean, safe, drinking-water wells in rural areas of the Dominican Republic that had no water systems [think drinking water from streams alongside cattle pastures, ditches or brackish sloughs] over a four-year period at a cost of less than $2,000 per well. Each was equipped with a hand pump, manufactured for us in India, whose mechanism could be repaired by someone with the basic skills of a bicycle mechanic.
I would rather see more safe drinking water projects, and fewer solar “single-bulb night light and cell phone charger” projects in the developing world.
My old employer spent 25 years doing wells in Ethiopia. A pretty satisfying project for everyone involved – giving people a needed safe and appreciated water supply (aside from the inevitable local government dash).
Wayne Delbeke ==> The Dominican women did not trust the wells to be safe — as the government was a partner in the effort. To dispel their lack of confidence, at each “grand opening” of a new village well, I would have a bright-smiled child enthusiastically operate the pump and i would cup my hands under the running stream and drink deeply — the sight of a “gringo” drinking was proof that the water was safe (in the DR, gringos drink ONLY bottled water). It was always very moving to see 20 or 30 grown women shedding tears of joy — for the health of their children, the end of the daily drudgery of fetching [unclear, unsafe] water from a distant stream or ditch.
Why not both?
Solar LED projects in Asia and Africa – which sell the lights, not give them away – replace the use of kerosene lanterns with solar lights…
Kerosene is expensive, taking a large proportion of incomes and leaving people in fuel poverty… kerosene lights also cause fires and are unhealthy.
Switching to a purchased LED light with phone charger is much better.
Griff ==> Local owned, independent, for profit, commercial efforts providing solar panel, battery, LED light fixture and one 5-10 amp outlet systems are a fine idea. People who want them can buy them, They provide employment and business opportunities.
Large-scale NGO programs spending millions of donated dollars to provide such systems under the guise of providing electrification to the poor are both a waste of money and hypocritical.
The poor are not dying of “lack of a night light” or suffering from “can’t charge my cell phone”.
They, and mostly their children, die from lack of refrigeration which allows them to buy food in reasonable (more than one day) quantities and keep it from spoiling.
Their economies are near-death because it is nearly impossible to operate a successful micro-business without access to 24/7 (or at least dependable) electrical power.
Providing “panel-bulb-and-battery” lighting systems to the poor instead of helping communities build and maintain at least a local electrical system is [almost] an utter waste and plays a cruel trick on the recipients.
I know from personal experience that it is possible to supply a working 24/7 locally built and maintained micro-hydropower 120 VAC generation plant and delivery system serving 25 homes for about $600 per household — less with local donations or local NGO/government assistance.
That’s a solution.
“I have to wonder what all the strong negative emotion is really all about”
See my reply to Nacoo Biznis.
Thanks for a great post, Willis. “You know you are over the target when the flak is at its thickest”.
For Cassandra —– really? Why would you pick that as a handle? It does not lead to credibility. Look it up. But fair comments just the same.
Enjoyable afternoon watching “Canadian” football and reading comments.
Thanks to all.
Go Calgary – Grey Cup next week!
What about hail damage?
Wouldn’t these shingles have to be connected up like christmas lights? low voltage connections on at rooftop environment are difficult to maintain from my experience.
Most solar panels have 36 cells wired in series to produce about 17 volts. In the photo there appears to be a single cell per shingle, so yes there would need to be many shingles wired together to produce a usable output, and the devil would be in the details of that process, with a single failed connection taking 36 shingles offline.
Further the actual cell would appear to cover maybe half of the total exposure, and the raised profile would lead to shading for part of the day even if the roof was oriented perfectly. Further, the shingles shown do not appear to have enough profile and overlap to reliably prevent leakage of wind driven rain, so they might require an additional waterproof membrane underneath in locations like Florida.
It aggravates me that people nowadays use Tesla’s name to further their profits. They have so little of his understanding.
Willis, you are right to gripe about policy, but you should know a good businessman will never leave $$ on the table for competitors. You couldn’t figure that out by yourself? If you don’t like the product, don’t buy it, and if enough others agree, the company will stop making it. That’s how the free market works (you are right to gripe about govt interference in said market, albeit no-longer-free).
“Next, these solar shingles will be much more difficult to install, and thus much costlier, than a regular roof, involving electricians, special installers, and other high-priced folks.”
My immediate thought when I read the title.
My guess is these are going to be a spectacular flop, or reserved for the conscientious rich folk to ease their conscience while they sleep at night (and don’t generate electricity).
All good points raised in the article.
However, the car industry (what’s left of it) is subsidized already. Why not subsidize Elon’s too? At least to the same level, not more, hopefully less. It makes no difference that he is producing electric-powered cars or poo-powered cars, a car is a car is a car.
So long as he is manufacturing them in the US, Trump will likely love it.
I have a feeling that Trump is all for increasing subsidies, and tariffs. Time will tell of course.
Tesla powers a whole island with solar to show off its energy chops
Tesla completed its $2.6 billion acquisition of SolarCity this week, and, to celebrate, the company has announced a major solar energy project: wiring up the whole island of Ta’u in American Samoa. Previously, the island ran on diesel generators, but over the past year Tesla has installed a microgrid of solar energy panels and batteries that will supply “nearly 100 percent” of power needs for Ta’u’s 600 residents.
[ … ]
The project in Ta’u shows the benefit of this. It was funded by American Samoan and US authorities (including the Department of Interior), and Tesla says it will offset the island’s use of more than 109,500 gallons of diesel per year, as well as the expense of shipping that fuel in. “Factoring in the escalating cost of fuel, along with transporting such mass quantities to the small island, the financial impact is substantial,” said Tesla in a blog post.
http://www.theverge.com/2016/11/22/13712750/tesla-microgrid-tau-samoa
Wiring up a remote pacific island … well, it is one place that such an installation MIGHT make economic sense, due to the high cost of shipping fuel.
Some research reveals the following:
ASPA [American Samoa Power Authority] is also utilizing local funding to initiate Phase II of the project on the island of Ta’u. In August 2015 ASPA selected Solar City as its contractor to install the hybrid system on Ta’u with 1.41 MW of solar panels and 4.2 MWh of Tesla energy storage batteries. This phase of the project will also be finished later this year resulting in an 85 percent offset in diesel fuel consumption on Ta’u.
They are going to put in 5,328 Solarcity panels, and 60 Powerwall batteries. Not including shipping or the increased costs of doing installations on a remote island (ask me, been there), that adds up to just under FIVE MILLION DOLLARS worth of solar goodies. Added to that are the backup generator, of course, and we’re over five mil.
(Now, here’s something funny. After doing my own estimate of the costs of over five million, I found this from the ASPA:
So my numbers are not bad for a back-of-the-envelope estimate … but I digress).
Next, they CLAIM that this will “offset” a hundred and nine thousand gallons of diesel per year. My calculations look like this:
solar panel count, 5328
watts/panel, 260
capacity (megawatts), 1.41
capacity factor, 0.25
megawatt-hrs/yr, 3090
fuel-gallons/yr, 109,000
fuel-tons of oil equivalent/yr, 353.9
MWhrs/toe, 12
megawatt-hrs/yr, 4247
That doesn’t pan out. So it appears that they’ve used a theoretical capacity factor of 0.35 … I find that hard to believe. That’s up in the tracking-array range.
Next, the diesel price in Apia, American Samoa, was $0.66 per litre yesterday. Figure 50% on top of that to get it out to an outer island. That means that their fuel cost for 109,000 gallons is about $400,000 per year. That means that the payback time on the solar IF THERE WERE NO MAINTENANCE OR REPLACEMENT COSTS AND THERE WERE NO TIME COST OF MONEY is on the order of 15 years. And that’s assuming that they can somehow get a 35% capacity factor out of the system.
But in the real world, there are maintenance costs and replacement costs and mostly there is time cost of money. If we take the $6.8 million and invest it at three percent, and use it to pay the fuel costs, the same amount would pay for 24 years of fuel …
So it is POSSIBLE that this might be a good deal in a perfect world where there are no maintenance or replacement costs, and where they get 35% capacity, and even then only if all of the equipment lasts for 24 years in a tropical marine environment, one of the most corrosive of natural environments to electronics of any kind.
My prediction? If you go there in three years, it may still be operating. If you go there in ten years, it will be bleached bones. I wish them every success, and I’d be overjoyed to be proven wrong, but that’s my best guess.
w.
PS—As a quick overview of my bonafides in this question, my involvement in tropical solar systems began in 1985, when I was hired as part of a study of the use of solar systems in the outer islands of Fiji. I skippered a 28-foot open boat around a number the outer islands of Fiji and went ashore as a part of the research team, looking at both solar and fossil fuel electrical systems.
I followed this interest in the seventeen years I subsequently spent living in Fiji and the Solomon Islands. During three years of that time I lived off the grid using solar power (plus the inevitable generator backup). During another three years I lived on and ran a remote island, where I was in charge of the generator that powered the entire island (well, powered it during working hours. After hours it was kerosene …).
I also taught the use of village-level renewable energy of various types to Peace Corps Volunteers, and designed energy programs for their involvement. I also ran a rural development NGO in the Solomon Islands for two years, where I was in charge of several of energy-related projects.
Finally, I spent two years as the Chief Financial Officer of the largest fuel-importing company in the Solomons, so I’m very familiar with fuel shipping costs in remote Pacific islands.
So I’ve looked at dozens and dozens of tropical solar systems and I’ve run the numbers over and over for solar and fossil and wind and combinations of the above. On remote outer islands, the economics of solar can work, but the margins are thin … and there is no social tradition of maintenance of machinery.
Thanks for the numbers, Willis. It will be interesting to follow this over the next few years.
Willis Eschenbach wrote
“… An asphalt shingle roof replacement will last forty years and cost something like $3.80 per square foot….”
Surprised by this statement. I repaired such a roof three years ago. It had a 30 year warranty on the shingles. They were properly installed on a well-ventilated roof in a dry, temperate region (the Southern Canadian Rockies) when the house was built 17 years earlier. Yet the shingles on the South facing slope already needed replacing.
The roofer I hired to install the new shingles estimated that the rest of the old shingles might be good for another three years or so.
I bought the replacement shingles myself from the main local building supply – the same brand and retail source from which the builder had bought the originals, and noted that the 30 year warranty had a great big gotcha! – the buyer has to ship all the defective shingles back to the manufacturer at his own cost to make a warranty claim.
So I wonder whether anyone has ever seen 30 (let alone 40) year asphalt shingles last to their BB date?