It has been over four years since we first heard of Tesla’s solar roofs and then they announced in early 2017 that interested people can start placing orders for the roofs. But since then, we only heard little about people who had actually installed it and what their experience with it was. Well a user was kind enough to post his experience on Twitter and here is the story.
Elon Musk’s Tesla just installed Solar Roof in Florida, and the property owner Tony Cho is euphoric.
The 44-kilowatt roof, which covers the ChoZen Retreat, spans across the 7,300 square feet. The first thing of note is the immediate advantage it has over the common home solar panel installation. First this is a 44 kilowatts system versus the 10 kilowatts most homes get.
A video of the roof shared by Cho on Twitter on December 30 became a web sensation, and Tesla CEO Elon Musk composed on January 9 that it was “one of the best Tesla Solar Roof installations.”
Speaking to American publication Inverse, Cho reveals to Inverse the expense was not out of this world as some may think. He said the cost of this is about 35 percent more than the cost of solar panels and a roof combined but this delivers way more electric power to your home than the panels. He also revealed that this has led to big savings on his overall energy bills.
He told Inverse that “For the operations that I have here, the retreats that I host, and the size of the property, I think [the savings are] phenomenal.”
Tesla put in some work to not just make the roof look like one very big solar panel or a series of solar panels joined together. Rather they designed by bring solar harvesting tiles that work together as one giant solar panel and it may take a while for the unsuspecting eye to even know that the roof is a solar roof.
The complete installation works with a Tesla Powerwall battery which stores the harvested energy. Well back in 2016, Elon Musk added that you may need the Tesla Model 3 to have the complete package. But as reported by Inverse, Cho needed three Powerwall batteries to meet his energy demands.
I have heard some say they would like to know more about the roofs but like I said earlier, many didn’t know so much about the but thanks to Cho for this. It does not mean that installations were not happening, there were indeed happening however at a slow pace but this is the first person to give a better perspective to the installation especially with respect to price and actual energy cost savings. Most homes may need one Powerwall battery so the cost may not be as high as Cho’s. It was just when Musk revealed the third generation roof tiles in October 2019, intended for quicker installations, that more roofs began springing up.
Another recipient of the new tiles is LinkedIn engineer Robby Valles. While Cho’s roof was especially enormous, Valles’ was prominently little, at simply 7.37 kilowatts more than 1,737 square feet. He revealed in August 2020 his new roof cost $34,067, before government tax reduction. After the 26 percent credit is considered in, the real expense could drop as low as $26,000.
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Paul Femi Balo is the founder and publisher of TechBooky. He covers artificial intelligence, African technology, digital infrastructure, enterprise technology and the global digital economy.
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