France in Focus

A new kid in town or on your roof, there's talk on the street, it sounds so familiar, great expectations, everybody's watching you: solar roof tiles. In the near or further future, for a younger generation and only for tradional roofs. In the USA, in France, in the Netherlands and of course also in solar panel country #1: Germany.

Solar tiles, a wiring nightmare.
Tesla have made them, I do not know if the German units are in production, The french (picture) it a total load of fake, and the Dutch TNO tile is made using high efficiency perovskite which is nowhere near commercial production. I guess we have to wait a lot longer for the real deal.

I'd rather stick to good old slates which will last more than our lifetime and need no maintenance and don't break down. I'd hate to see skilled roofers and thatchers out of a job ....
If solar panels are reckoned to have a life expectancy of, say 25 to 30 years, what will be the cost of replacing them ? And the cost of recycling the old ones ? House sales might have to reflect the cost of replacing older solar panels ....

I'm not totally against the idea but I do wonder about the cost, particularly because today you get virtually nothing back from EDF for excess electricity produced. Perhaps they will be cheaper to make (I'm sure the Chinese will do well) - but disposal of worn out ones ?

Bah! Humbug!
Likely to be yet another ground shaking innovation likely to bring the cowboys out of the woodwork to separate the first adopters from their money.

Look through any window, what do you see? More tech is also less. Traditional windows are more equal than others. While solar windows are promising, undergoing field and lab testing, true transparent solar windows are mostly still in their commercialization and prototype phases. Most residential and commercial options available on the market today rely on tinted or semi-transparent solar glass rather than a perfectly clear coating.