Sharp Widens the Market for Solar Panels

Solar panels tend to be demanding devices. They're a certain shape (rectangular), need to be put on roofs on particular configurations and have to face the sun at specific angles. So not only does it take a professional installer to place them, they also just don't make sense for some rooftops.

That's especially true in Japan, where the houses are often small and crowded together, which fact has given electronics giant Sharp the impetus to create a new product called Roofit. With it, installers will be able to play a sort of Tetris of the rooftop, picking pieces of different sizes and shapes to get more complete coverage, and deploy solar on roofs that would otherwise be too small for the expense to be justifiable.

Sharp is also using panels that are thinner and more flexible than standard photovoltaics. But the advantage to all these changes boils down to one reality: Easier, cheaper installation. And that's a story that's a lot bigger than just one new product.

The dream of the solar industry is to have fully building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV), panels that are part of the windows, roofing or even paint of a house. Yet while mass-market BIPV seems to be some distance off, the intermediate step toward it is already taking shape.

What that means, in large part, is cutting down the cost and complexity of placing a bank of panels on a roof. One example is inverters. Instead of running wiring to a centralized inverter, which converts the DC power solar panels produce to AC, a micro-inverter made by Enphase can now be attached to the underside of each panel.

Another company I've written about, not yet on the market, is Solar Red. They want to improve the racking arrays solar panels use so that they can be more easily built into new roofs. Other products aim at making panels cheaper to put on existing rooftops.

Installation is still almost half the price of solar panels, so there's plenty of financial incentive for companies to innovate. BIPV will take several years to gain steam. In the meantime, is the next step the era of do-it-yourself solar? This could be a whole new market for Lowes and Home Depot.