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In 2016 the company tried to make the roof look like a beautiful array of glass tiles with solar energy. San Jose, California-based GAF Energy believes it has a simpler solution to the solar roof. It has a solar shingle that can be nailed down in packs like regular shingles, making it a great option for repairing or replacing a roof.
The solar panel is near a nail gun.
The new Timberline Solar shingles are the first to actually work that way, and they are the first to be called solar shingles because of that. DeBono says that the solar shingles are similar to regular solar panels, but they require rails to be screwed down.
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It takes days instead of weeks to install a solar roof, according to DeBono. He says that they have installed them already, including ripping off the old roof and putting on a new one. The company tried traditional tile-based solar roofs, and DeBono said that GAF Energy had installed over 2,000 of them. It takes 10 to 12 people on the roof. Standard Industries decided to invest over $1 billion in this seemingly simpler shingle solution. Standard Industries has a Forbes profile of their founders.
DeBono says the Timberline Solar are the first products to ever receive the certification to serve as both solar panels and construction materials. He says the panels are Class A fire rated, stand up to hail, and are less dense than a normal shingle, which means they should be just as easy to sling around as a normal shingle.
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DeBono says it shouldn't be less efficient or more expensive just because there are more modules. DeBono says the Thai cells his company is using are 22.6 percent efficient, within a few percent of the state-of-the-art in solar panels, and the greater number of shingles means the system's total power doesn't degrade as much.
For another, that 6kW system should take up between 350 and 450 square feet on a roof, roughly the same amount of space as a rack-mounted solar panel system, and the rest of the roof can be filled in with matched shingles from GAF.
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It will definitely cost more than just adding solar panels to an existing roof. It will cost the same as if you were to get a new roof and put solar on it, says DeBono. He wouldn't say how much each shingle costs. He suggests that there is a big opportunity for some people to add renewable energy while they are at it because more people are getting new roofs each year. GAF already sells traditional shingles to cover one out of every four of those roofs.
The solar shingles don't look exactly like shingles, but there are covers for their wiring, and you'll need a mid-circuit interrupt safety device for every 2kW of panel that fits in.
A 130,000 square foot facility in San Jose, California is where all of these are made. If you assume each of the 8,300 homes requires the average 6 kilowatt array, it is less than the amount you might think. DeBono says he is also looking at it as the first manufacturing facility for GAF Energy.
He says the new Timberline Solar panels are now available through the company's existing network of roofing contractors in the US East Coast and Texas, though they aren't currently available in big solar states like California or Florida. He says it will take about 90 days for them to be listed with the California Energy Commission and possibly four to five months for additional wind testing in Florida. From there, the company will expand to other states.
The solar industry is currently fighting against a new California proposal to charge solar panel owners a flat fee for every kilowatt of solar panel capacity they hook up to the grid, and that is not good news for the solar industry. The death of the solar industry in California is not hyperbole, according to DeBono, who pointed out that the Nevada solar industry eventually changed its tune after the state phased out incentives.
