Tesla Solar Roof installations are starting to roll out in California, with non-Tesla employees and even customers without a Tesla now getting rooftops full of Tesla’s Solar Roof Tiles.
The roof tiles themselves come in blocks of a few tiles, with the rationale being that it helps to streamline the physical installation and wiring while also reducing the possible points of failure from a wiring or roof leakage standpoint.
The photo below shows an overhead shot of a Tesla Solar Roof mid-install. The solar roof tiles are boxed in blocks of 1 meter (3 feet). Up on the roof, the wiring is tucked into the supports under the roof tiles for protection from the water and sun.
Tesla has created a completely new product that’s a hybrid of roofing and solar.
Tesla’s solar legos come with a mind-boggling lifetime warranty that ensures their physical integrity for the life of the home or infinity, whichever comes first (in typical Tesla fashion). To this end, the first installations reveal the underlayment that Tesla is mounting under the panels that gives them the confidence that the roof will indeed stand up to decades or even centuries of wear and tear. It is laying a foundation of water barrier to keep the water out topped by a new wood structure to hold the water barrier down while also giving the solar roof tile building blocks a place to mount.
All the installs of Solar Roof Tiles are bundled with Tesla’s Powerwall residential energy storage product, with one home featuring 3 of the massive 14 kWh units. That’s enough for the average American home to run off the grid for 3½ days without changing habits or even using energy produced by the solar panels.
Tesla’s smartphone app allows users to view solar energy production, consumption, and energy flow from the various sources and consumption units. For owners with a Tesla vehicle, Powerwall, and roof tiles, the flow of energy from all of these units is displayed and can be parsed out depending on the user’s preference.