Solar Powered Roof Tiles For your Home
Think of generating energy in your home and you will most likely imagine solar panels, Large rectangular shiny plates adorning your roof. For some residences this might be unsightly and dissuade you from the idea of installing photovoltaic solar panels in your home. If you could just make them fit in more with the look and style them maybe you would be tempted to use clean solar energy.
How about a roof tile that generates clean photovoltaic solar energy, a solar roof tile. Well that appears to be what is happening with a company, SRS Energy. They claim to be developing a soar roof tile that can power your home and does not spoil the appearance of your residence.
Looking like a clay roof time, these solar tiles curved and have a Mediterranean look to them. The technology behind them has made each tile independent, that means if a tile happens to become faulty, dislodged or broken then it will not bring down the whole solar system.
The tiles themselves come in quite large with each one being 37 inches wide and 18 inches in length. With around 30 tiles needed to cover and area of 100 square feet this would put a load of 240 lbs on your roof. Due to the tile overlap that is needed this leaves about 15 inches of each tile left for exposure to sunlight. From this the company says that a typical energy output would be around 850 kilowatts with a daily 6 hour exposure to sunlight.
Green Living
Like other solar panels systems, this can have the ability, as well as generating clean electricity for your home, Store any excess for use when it is dark or you need that extra bit of demand. Spare electrical energy can be reintroduced back in the the power grid and thus earning you money or credits from your electrical utility supplier.
Currently, the SRS tiles come in blue and blue. Yes just one color, this they say is due to the limits of the production process used in make the solar roof tiles. In the future, once developments are made, a wide range of colors should be available.
The availability of solar roof tiles is quite small as it is still a new area and mostly in development, Photovoltaic solar panels are more common, becoming more efficient and are really not that unsightly, These new solar roof tiles are an option if appearance is really important and you like the color blue.
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