It has been all over the news lately – Dow Solar Solutions’ Solar Shingles – including, The Detroit Free Press and The Chicago Tribune. According to the articles and TV reports, Dow Solar Solutions is working on solar residential roofing shingles.
Dow has been working with three home builders; Lennar Corp. , Pulte Homes Inc., and Prost Builders Inc.; along with an Arizona based company, Global Solar Energy Inc., that produces flexible materials.
“We’ve thrown everything you can imagine at them from simulated hail to fire to see how they react, One day, a person would no more think about buying a house without solar shingles than they would buy a house without plumbing. That is our hope, at least.” Robert J. Cleereman, senior director of solar development for Dow Chemical.
In a November, 2008 press release, Bob Cleereman, Dow’s senior technical director of building integrated photovoltaic technology, had this to say: “Dow’s innovative technology is based on a much more cost-effective photovoltaic material, called CIGS, and these cells are ‘packaged’ within the roofing product creating a ‘solar shingle,’ This approach enables lower fabrication and installation costs, because both the conventional and solar roofing shingles are installed at the same time. The result for the home or building owner is that solar-generated electricity costs no more than power generated by burning green house gas-creating fossil fuels.”
For More Solar products click here
