Exploring Tesla Solar Roof vs. Solar Panels

Sponsored by Surfshark VPN. Click on the link in the description and enter promo code UNDECIDED for 83% off and 3 extra months for free. When Tesla released their solar roof, it piqued consumer interest in solar tiles. And it caught a lot of people by surprise when Tesla recently increased the solar roof's cost by a pretty big margin. But they're not playing this game alone. Let's explore how Tesla's solar products stack up against the competition and what's a better value, solar panels or solar tiles? I'm Matt Ferrell ... welcome to Undecided. When Tesla releases a new product, it instantly goes viral, and the solar roof was no exception. Since then, this technology has spurred a lot of interest around the world, but Tesla wasn't the first company entering this market, although it was the biggest. A few companies had already introduced solar tiles on the market, while others had been spurred on by Tesla to develop similar products. In a previous video, I covered a lot of the details of Tesla's solar roof and interviewed an installer with experience with the product. I'll include a link in the description if you're interested. And just recently, Tesla changed solar roof's pricing somewhat dramatically. But before we unpack that price, let's jump into the technology and check out the differences, advantages, and downsides compared to solar panels. Solar tiles have the same operational principle of panels, which have been widely used for many years in residential and commercial uses. The major difference between them is that solar panels are installed on an existing roof, while solar tiles are part of the roof's construction. Taking the place of conventional shingles and new construction or replacement roofing. Both tiles and panels operate under the photovoltaic effect principle. When photovoltaic cells receive sunlight, they produce an electric field capable of delivering DC electricity into the building. Similar to panels, solar tiles are connected to each other so that the system can produce more power. On top of that, an inverter is used to convert the tile's DC power into AC, which is used by all of our homes and grid. They're also able to optimize solar energy generation. Solar tiles' major advantage is kind of obvious, they're more aesthetically pleasing to look at than a panel, while also keeping the same environmentally friendly advantages. They're intentionally designed to not only look like traditional roofing, but are part of the roof itself. Varying shades of blue and black are the most common colors for solar tiles because they're leaning into the natural color of a solar cell, which you're most likely very familiar with. But Tesla has been rolling out techniques to create textured PV roof tiles to look more like typical roofing. In a patent from February of this year named System and Method for Improving Color Appearance of Solar Roofs, Tesla stated, The surface of a polycrystalline silicon-based solar cell can be textured using a reactive ion-etching technique. In further embodiments, the feature size of the REI textured surface can be less than 1 micron. Compared to the textured surface of a monocrystalline silicon-based solar cell, the REI textured surface of a polycrystalline silicon solar cell can have improved surface uniformity. As a result, the PV roof tiles can have a reduced color flop and glow. As made up as color flop sounds, it's a real thing. In the case of metallic paints, flop affects how the hue appears depending on the angle of light reflecting off the metal flakes in the paint. You can see this effect in action when walking around a solar panel. The hue shifts depending on your angle. Tesla's patent addresses this issue. And when looking beyond aesthetics, one area that panels have an edge over tiles is positioning. Solar tiles can't be turned or tilted to catch maximum sunlight, so the installation angle can't be optimized. Another area of advantage for panels is price. The solar panels market is widespread over the world, which has caused a continuous decrease in solar panel prices. Let's take a closer look at some of the specs of the prices of major sellers, but before I get to that, I'd like to thank Surfshark for sponsoring this video. I always use a VPN when I use public Wi-Fi, but VPNs can be very useful even when you're at home. A lot of online services use some pretty sophisticated commercial targeting and tracking, and a VPN can protect you from that. Surfshark's clean web does a great job blocking ads, trackers, and malicious websites, making it safer to use the internet even at home. And you can even make it look like your IP address is coming from a completely different country. This can come in handy if you want to stream a video that's only available from a specific location. One of the best parts of Surfshark is that it's easy to set up on all of your devices, whether that's iPhone or Android, Mac or PC. Surfshark is the only VPN to offer one account to use with an unlimited number of devices. Use my code to get 83% off, plus three extra months for free. Surfshark offers a 30-day money-back guarantee, so there's no risk to try it out for yourself. Link in the description below and thanks to Surfshark and all of you for supporting the channel. So getting back to the comparisons, I just need to be clear, you should not take the exact dollar values I'm about to present as what you'll see when you're shopping for solar. These are averages taken with installation costs included, so it's going to vary based on where you live and the complexity of your home. And these companies may tweak the product over time, which also affects the price. Many of these numbers are taken from places like EnergySage, which is a great resource for researching solar products and even finding an installer, but I'll get to that in a bit. Take these numbers as a comparison only. It's a ratio to understand how these different panels and tiles compare. It's not necessarily the final cost that you'll see. So first up is SunPower, which designs all-in-one residential and commercial panels. Looking at the company's latest solar panel technologies, the monocrystalline A-Series SPR-A410GAC delivers 410 watts and can reach efficiencies up to 22%. SunPower provides an output warranty term of 25 years and ensures a 92% output at the end of the warranty term. It's an incredible panel. This model is one of the most expensive among similar models, but with the performance and warranty you can probably see why. According to EnergySage, the average cost per square meter is around $718.02, with a per watt cost of about $3.27. I'm giving the cost per square meter for an easier comparison when I get to the solar tiles. On the other side of the globe, Jinko has been producing panels of the same power at an average cost per watt of $2.74, almost 20% lower than SunPower's solar panel. The cost per square meter is an average of $558, but it's important to mention that the Jinko Eagle model reaches efficiencies up to 20.38% and the manufacturer provides a 25 year warranty term with an 83.1% output at the end of the term. It's a little cheaper, but has the risk of a slightly bigger efficiency drop over time. As for Tesla, their 330 watt solar panels have an average price per square meter of $546.95 and an average cost per watt of $2.78. As I mentioned earlier, this may be higher than you expected, but this is from real world data that EnergySage has compiled on those panels. The specific numbers are going to vary based on where you live. These numbers are specifically for the Tesla SC330, which reaches an efficiency up to 19.7%. Tesla provides a 25 year warranty with a guaranteed 80% or above output at the end of the term. Jumping over to solar tiles, even though Tesla's solar roof isn't available everywhere yet, they've been pushing hard at the solar tiling technology to make it easier to install and look better. Version 3 of the solar roof is 114 cm long by 43 cm wide and can produce about 58 watts at a cost of about $6.49 per watt or $767 per square meter. As we were doing research for this video, news broke that Tesla had just increased the solar roof's cost, but I think it's a little more nuanced than just raising prices. Based on conversations with people who have had it installed, as well as Eric Weddle's experience installing the solar roof, the complexity of the roof can affect the final cost dramatically. Now that Tesla has installed a lot more solar roofs, they've learned a lot about their price estimates. I think they've recognized the variability of the price quote system. The new quote system includes options for selecting if your roof is simple, moderate, or complex. So I don't think this is just about raising prices, but making their estimates more realistic and accurate. Now besides Tesla, there are some companies around the world jumping into the solar tile technology. GB Sol, a British company, also produces three types of low power PV slates that range from 25 to 35 watts. The 60 by 30 cm model has a cost per square meter equaling $1,485 and a $7.64 per watt. LumaSolar is another U.S. company in the market. At the time of this video, they produce 60 watt shingles made of thin film polycrystalline, which are 138.6 cm by 38.7 cm. They have a 25 year warranty and ensure 80% output at the end of term. According to what I found, Luma's tiles are costing $4.50 per watt and $504.90 per square meter. However, I have talked to the CEO and he pointed out the difficulty in generalizing prices because of varying labor rates, building conditions, and electrical work that might be needed. It's important to call that out and I brought it up earlier, but what he said about their product? A custom LumaSolar roof system includes valleys, hips, ridges, and standard details and is approximately $9.50 per square foot. If you add solar, $2.50 per watt for the material. The balance of the system costs, labor, inverters, and commissioning can range from $1.50 to $3.50 per watt. What I found picking from some of the top sellers in the market, solar panels rated around 400 watts cost from $2.74 for JNCO to $3.27 per watt for SunPower, and the average among all of them was $2.99 per watt. In addition, they can produce from 194 to 220 watts per square meter, averaging 201.49 watts per square meter. Considering the solar tiling companies we used in this research, things fell in between $4.19 per watt for Energy to $7.64 per watt for GBSol. With Tesla Roof in the middle at $6.49 per watt. The average value among all of the solar tile companies gives us $5.74 per watt, and they can produce an average of 133 watts per square meter for a cost of $799. All of that compares to the solar panel averages of $2.99 per watt, 201 watts per square meter for a cost of $603. So what's the better value or better option? Well, shingles can be aesthetically nicer than panels with different colors and shapes, but when it comes to price and power production per square meter, panels stand out. They're almost half the cost per watt. But solar tiles bring additional value to the solar and residential market. They're the actual roof, so there isn't a separate cost for another roofing material. They also offer a longer lifespan and are resilient and potentially easier to repair. In my interview with Eric Weddle from Weddle and Sons Roofing, he said this about the repairs. So if you break one of these tiles, something happens and you break it. All you have to do, because they're tempered, they just shatter into pretty safe size pieces. You take a shop vac, you vacuum it up, you slap it in a new tile. So I envision that repairability is actually going to be a real advantage going forward. With growing demand and the mass production of Tesla's solar roof, the cost of these tiles should start to decrease in time, which could significantly heat up the market even more. With more interest means more investment from other players in the market, which benefits all of us. Both panels and tiles are effective systems at producing comparable amounts of solar during their life cycle. A 9 kW solar tile system is going to produce just as much power as a 9 kW panel system if that's all you need. One isn't necessarily better than the other. It depends on your goals and needs. If you're replacing your entire roof or building a new home, tiles are worth a consideration. If you're adding solar to an existing roof, panels are the way to go. It's great to have options. And if you live in the U.S., you can use my EnergySage portal to research different solar panels and options in your area. A lot of the information that we compiled for this video came from EnergySage. I used EnergySage to find a solar installer that I use for my home and I absolutely love the experience. It's completely free and a great way to get apples to apples comparisons and quotes for installers. I'll include links to my portal and everything in the description. So which are you more interested in? Tiles or panels? Jump into the comments and let me know. If you liked this video, be sure to check out one of the ones I have linked to right here. Be sure to subscribe and hit the notification bell if you think I've earned it. And as always, thanks to all of my Patrons and to all of you for watching. I'll see you in the next one.