Photovoltaic shingles are one of the newest and interesting developments in solar panel technology to reach the renewable power industry in years.

Solar power is rapidly becoming the alternative energy choice for a lot of people and many new products have been launched to make adding one of these systems easier and better looking on your house.

Photovoltaic shingles are created to be installed on a house like normal shingles and do away with the requirement for big, roof-mounted solar panels. No need for the big clunky looking boxes on your roof. They feature identical functionality as the big panel boxes and will still the environmentally friendly job of transforming sun light to solar power but look a whole lot better doing it.

This makes them suitable for brand new construction. It would be excellent if many new homes included photovoltaic shingles installed on them when they are built. The pluses are the clean electrical power we all can produce right from our roof. In addition you will get cost savings from your electrical company on your electrical consumption and on the taxes associated with your electric bill..

These new solar shingles are made possible by recently available developments in flexible solar panel technology that makes use of another type of process for making the actual solar cells. Normal solar panels make use of silicon cells that are grown as fragile crystals over a week or more, and next put on a support material and installed in a weather resistant box to be placed on the roof of your home.

Today's photovoltaic shingles are actually produced by applying a specialized silicon solution onto a flexible substrate and producing the solar cells right on the surface of the shingle. Once this material has been placed on the shingle, an additional protective coating of transparent sealer is added onto the surface to protect the solar cells against the weather. These photovoltaic shingles are meant to appear just like regular shingles and are also installed in similarly.

Not counting the aesthetic considerations of these new photovoltaic shingles for a home, they are also more resilient than a conventional box type panels in a number of ways. Because they're installed on the roof directly, they're able to support a lot more weight than a normal solar panel.

This is important in colder climates in which serious snow can twist and break an ordinary panel during the winter time. Additionally they lay down flat on the roof, which eliminates the potential for damage from high wind gusts raising them off the roof. Traditional box panels should be extremely strongly secured in places that have high winds and may still be destroyed with time by severe gusts.

An additional benefit these types of photovoltaic shingles offer is concealed wiring. With traditional solar panel systems, the cabling between the panel boxes and the connection to the home is completed through a conduit that is anchored to the roof and outside walls of the home.

This is often yet another ugly element to normal solar energy panels. Since the photovoltaic shingles are mounted flat to the roof and their cabling is passed through the roof itself and connections are completed inside the attic, there is no uncovered cabling, which produces a more long lasting and great look to the home.

Because retrofitting a current house even now is cost prohibitive, it may be advisable to consider using conventional solar panels when adding solar to an existing home. By making your own solar panels you can save a great deal of money on the cost of the panels. They should still last you 20 years or more with today's technologies and products available for you to make them.

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