Solar tiles: Musk's new weapon is here

Although Elon Musk's speech was not fluent, it did not affect his ability to explain his vision of changing the world.

His plan to migrate to Mars sounds a bit far-fetched, but his renewable energy plan may soon change human life.

On October 29, 2016, Beijing time, Musk held a new product launch conference at Universal Studios in Los Angeles, USA, fully demonstrating his renewable energy plan and revealing his secret weapon.

In fact, Musk has always had a mission since he founded Tesla, which is to promote the world's renewable energy revolution.

Solar power generation has become his favorite path in the renewable energy revolution, so he hopes that the future will be like this: there will be equipment that produces electricity through solar energy, equipment that stores electricity, and equipment that uses electricity.

It was also at this press conference that he unveiled a new secret weapon and updated an existing weapon.

Yes, the new secret weapon is the solar tiles, which together form a solar roof. Another updated weapon is Tesla's Powerwall (home power storage device), which is now in its second generation. Tesla electric cars have become indispensable. The updates of the first two items also became the absolute protagonists of this conference.

The solar tiles in Musk's hands are different from all existing products in that they directly integrate solar panels and roof tiles together. A layer of colored light-transmitting film is covered on the solar panels, and then covered with high-strength tempered glass for protection. The strength of this layer of tempered glass exceeds that of all existing tile materials.

In addition, these solar tiles have another great benefit - all solar panels can only be seen from directly above, because of the mirror material, there is no difference from the bottom. So if you walk on the street, these roofs will not be any different from ordinary roofs, but they can indeed absorb solar energy to generate electricity.

Currently, Tesla has launched four different styles of solar tiles, including smooth, Tuscan, slate and textured. And at the launch event, the houses around have already replaced their solar roofs with different styles, as shown below:

Musk mentioned in his speech that there are currently 45 million new roofs in the United States, and this number will be 20 times larger worldwide. As more and more roofs are renovated, more and more people will use solar roofs.

After the secret weapon was launched, the second generation of Powerwall was used with it.

Compared with the first generation of Powerwall, the performance of Powerwall 2.0 has nearly doubled, with a storage capacity of 14kWh, a rated output power of 5kW, and its own inverter (which converts DC power into AC power). It is easy to install and can guarantee electricity for a two-bedroom apartment for a whole day. The current price is US$5,500.

Official data shows that the battery can be installed indoors or outdoors, with an operating temperature between minus 20 and 50 degrees Celsius, weighs 110 kilograms, and can be connected in parallel with up to 9 Powerwalls.

A spacious house, a beautiful solar roof to generate electricity, a powerful Powerwall to store electricity, and a cool Tesla electric car that can be charged through the Powerwall, these three have become the indispensable elements of Musk's beautiful blueprint, which is beautiful, affordable and highly integrated. Musk also hopes that such a combination can be promoted to more places as soon as possible.

In addition to the above-mentioned major announcements and updates, Tesla also provided a dedicated Powerpack system for large companies and even solar power stations, which has greater scalability.

Musk said in his speech that Tesla is currently building the largest energy storage system on Earth for Southern California Edison, and the maximum energy storage of the Powerpack after completion will be up to 80MWh. In addition, they also plan to build a 52MWh battery pack for the solar power station on Kauai Island.

Musk's love for renewable energy such as solar energy and electricity is evident from a series of actions, including designing and manufacturing Tesla electric cars, acquiring SolarCity, and building a Gigafactory to produce lithium-ion batteries.

Whether it is the Mars immigration plan (SpaceX) or the renewable energy revolution, Musk really wants to change the world and bring it to the path of sustainable development. But dreams also need financial support, and Tesla's current financial situation is not optimistic.

Perhaps we should give more time to people who have the means to change the world.

*The pictures in this article are taken from Musk’s speech video on Tesla’s official website