Hi all, 

 

I was wondering if any of you have come across these solar tiles before? http://www.soleccosolar.com

 

I saw them at the Homebuilding show at the NEC.  They appear to be some kind of solar silicone matt stuck on to what looks to be a Marley Eternit Modern Interlocking Concrete tile.  Essentially you can have as many or as few as you need to make up your solar requirement.  I've spoken to them and had a ballpark quote, if I do my entire south facing roof (200m2) with them, I'll end up with 30Kw of solar for just over £50k. Its important to note that this is the cost with the system installed including Solar Inverter and all cabling etc. They don't do a supply only which is a shame.  

 

What are your thoughts? I'm still looking in to the costs of tiling the roof with slates and integrated solar panels as @JSHarris did.

It would be £50k minus the cost of the slates, or tiles you would have fitted anyway, wouldn't it?

It would still be £50k though. Wow. 

I'd want some strong figures for payback vs lifetime for that capital outlay. ?

20 minutes ago, recoveringacademic said:

It would be £50k minus the cost of the slates, or tiles you would have fitted anyway, wouldn't it?

 

@recoveringacademic Well yes, £50k minus the cost of slates/ tiles including fitting and also whatever outlay my integrated solar panels and associated costs run to.

30kw of solar is a big array - takes you out of domestic RHI from

memory ( @Ferdinand..?) and you would need some serious payback calcs to make it stack up. 

 

If  it’s only a Marley Modern then your tile cost will be 80p or so per tile so £2k of tiles saved, assuming you were going for a rail mount rather than in roof array. 

 

What do you have PP for out of interest ..?

These systems make me concerned about the number of individual units and connections per roof. Id want some feedback and reassurances through warranty etc before fitting such a system but TBH I've not looked close enough yet to comment with any merit. Similar sized PV arrays can be sourced and fitted far cheaper but with the obvious impact on the eye. @JSHarris's roof looks more than acceptable to me, and iirc he has had visitors call to the house and ask why he never went with solar PV....only for him to explain that they're actually staring right at it  !

Lot of wiring if each tiles has a cable on it.

So a big chance that something will go wrong initially.

They say they last 30 years, so that will be 15 times longer than the company has been about

4 minutes ago, Nickfromwales said:

ask why he never went with solar PV

I knew he had PV, it really is very neat his system and cheaper than a tiled roof too.

 

And where is he.

Edited April 30, 20188 yr by SteamyTea

3 minutes ago, Nickfromwales said:

These systems make me concerned about the number of individual units and connections per roof. Id want some feedback and reassurances through warranty etc before fitting such a system but TBH I've not looked close enough yet to comment with any merit. Similar sized PV arrays can be sourced and fitted far cheaper but with the obvious impact on the eye. @JSHarris's roof looks more than acceptable to me, and iirc he has had visitors call to the house and ask why he never went with solar PV....only for him to explain that they're actually staring right at it  !

 

This statement off the website worries me ..!!

 

.....Designed to make installation a quick and simple process with no extra materials or training needed.....

 

there’s a disaster waiting to happen...

My initial thoughts tbh. 

It would be like finding the one blown xmas tree bulb.

3 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

And where is he.

He's been in touch to say he's busy with some personal matters and will be back soon to empty his notification inbox  which will now probably need 50gb of additional site storage

Life of solar panels is something like 20 to 30 years? If it still works after production will continue to decline.

Life of a quality tiled roof is maybe 3 (or more) times longer?

 

I would be concerned that in 30 years my roof behaves like an ordinary tiled roof (at best - assumes the tiles are not compromised by the solar aspects) and hence I have no upgrade path, other than to either replace the whole roof or add solar panels on top. At least with discrete panels (intgrated or otherwise) you can replace them easily.

 

This is a similar reason I refused to fit integrated sockets with USB charging points. Risk / technology averse!

As a comparator, I paid a little under £24k for around 180m2 of clay-tile and 4kWp of PV.

Thanks for all of your comments, it's these insights that I come here for.  I hadn't actually considered the multiple connections before and now that its been highlighted, it does sound like a potential ball ache somewhere in the future!