I don’t think it’s that good of an idea because only 50% of my roof was good for solar power (that is what faces the sun) so having the entire thing be panels is mostly a waste. I’m sure this is the case for a lot of houses. When I had panels installed, adding them on the “bad side” would only gain a few kwh.

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DanielHB 18 hours ago | parent | next [-]

From what I remember they also sold cheaper tiles that looked like the normal ones, but actually didn't have solar panels for this exact problem. I don't think this was much of a factor at all why this didn't work.

The main issue was that normal large panels got a lot cheaper way faster than expected and custom sized ones like that end up costing too much by comparison.

	▲	stephen_g 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		[dead]

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lathiat 18 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This is sort of over stated generally.

In Australia where North is “optimal”, even South facing panels produce only 20-30% less and East/West about 15%. It does vary a bit by latitude but it’s not at all pointless to install them in other orientations in many places. I have not done the math to see how much of the world this extends to, but it applies to a fairly large chunk of Australia. Source: https://www.solarquotes.com.au/panels/direction/

Tesla’s system also had non solar tiles so you could just skip the panels in whichever parts you wanted.

Roof construction is quite different here to the US though. We never have the plywood layer, it’s either ceramic tile or Colorbond steel directly onto usually wooden sometimes steel beams.

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awestroke 18 hours ago | parent [-]

Australia is pretty close to the equator

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teamonkey 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

In the UK, much further from the equator, some people are fitting panels on north-facing roofs. These are most effective on cloudy days.

This is mostly only cost-effective for remote properties where power cuts are common, but it works.

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aeronaut80 18 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Depending on which part you consider it’s also halfway to the South Pole. Cape York to Tasmania is almost 33° of latitude.

	▲	lathiat 18 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Right. Sydney is at 33.9 S and Darwin is 12.4 S Quote from the article: In Sydney, south-facing panels typically produce around 30% less energy than north-facing ones. The steeper the roof, the less they’ll produce. They’ll also produce much more energy in summer than winter. In the far north, the difference isn’t as great and in Townsville south-facing solar panels will only produce around 15% less energy overall than north-facing ones. Because Queenslanders generally use more electricity in summer than winter due to air conditioner demand, the fact that south-facing panels have considerably higher output in summer can improve self-consumption. In Darwin, south-facing panels produce about 17% less electricity overall than north-facing ones, and, like in Townsville, they have considerably higher output in summer than winter.

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pavon 18 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I don't think you typically install PV tiles on the entire Tesla Solar Roof. They have matching non-solar tiles, and you choose how much of the roof will be PV.

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nolist_policy 18 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Panels are so cheap it doesn't matter.

	▲	stephen_g 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Regular solar panels yes, but not the Tesla panels!