Not long ago, Brian and Summer Stubblefield wanted to install solar panels on their California home. They were considering an electric car, but solar-powered seemed like the right choice for both their wallets and the planet.
They contacted several contractors and received quotes for the solar system in the $28,000 range. However, there were caveats to each bid. Solar panels have a lifespan of more than 25 years, but the roof of the 2,000-square-foot home had about 10 years left. Therefore, a difficult decision had to be made. You can either pay for the replacement now, which will almost double the cost of the project, or you can install all the hardware knowing that it will have to be removed and reinstalled when you reroof, or you can choose to do the work. can be costly. Hundreds of dollars per panel.
“At that point we were frozen in place,” Brian Stubblefield said. “The fact that there was one more decision to make gave me pause.”
Amy Atchley, one of the contractors the couple contacted, said the Stubblefields are not alone in this dilemma. One of the first questions her company, Amy’s Roofing and Solar, asks customers is the age and condition of their roof. About half will need work done to accommodate solar power, and the outlook could be particularly troubling for those who still have five, 10 or even 15 years before their roofs need replacing. she says.
“It’s really hard to advise people,” she says. “Most people just decide to wait.”
Residential solar power generation system Typically provides 5 to 11 kilowatts of powerThat’s about 5 million households using solar power, totaling more than 38 gigawatts nationwide. That’s it equivalent Over 11,000 wind turbines. Solar panels not only help mitigate climate change, they also help provide resilience against power outages. But when homeowners have to green their roofs as they age, the benefits can be delayed or prohibitively expensive.
They thought it would be easy to rid their homes of fossil fuels. Confusion ensued.
One reason this question is so tricky is because, unlike solar panels, tax incentives don’t help offset the underlying problems with your roof. Even if you deal with issues during your solar installation. of The Internal Revenue Service revealed The federal tax credit, which can cover up to 30 percent of solar power systems, does not include “traditional building components that serve primarily a roof or structural function,” it said.
The Stubblefields said the lack of assistance “absolutely” influenced their decision to wait. But Brian Stubblefield said he understood it would be very expensive for the government to subsidize such a large expenditure.
The potentially good news is that regardless of roofing incentives, the residential solar market is still in its infancy, so you may not have to worry as much about losing customers as Stubblefields did. That’s true. of Approximately 500,000 residential solar power generation systems are in operation every year That’s a far cry from the roughly 5 million homes that need new roofs every year. This means there are still plenty of potential solar customers who will need a new roof anyway, a demographic that many companies are targeting.
“The best time to go solar is when you have a new roof,” said Keely DeWitt, vice president of marketing and public policy at roofing company GAF. The organization recently designed a product called Timberline Solar, which incorporates photovoltaic panels into roof shingles that are installed much like traditional shingles. DeWitt said if GAF can get more people in need of new roofs to convert to solar roofs, it will be an “opportunity for large-scale adoption of clean energy.”
Atchley agrees. In some situations, it may make economic sense to install the panels and later tear them down for re-roofing, but it makes the most sense to wait to do everything at once. Many of her clients find her while looking for roof bids and end up installing solar as well. The opposite rarely happens, she said.
Like DeWitt, she believes the government could do more to encourage integrated roofing and solar technology. For example, her company sells metal roofs that are designed to easily accommodate solar power and last nearly twice as long as the average panel. Currently not eligible for clean energy incentives.
“You can get a roof and solar power,” she said. “That should count.”
Lawmakers have been trying to address the issue. In 2021, Democratic lawmakers introduced the Raise the Roof Act to expand the solar tax credit to include these integrated solutions. But such efforts have yielded no results, leaving many people wanting to go solar forced to make difficult calculations regarding their roofs. This includes the Stubblefields, who have since relocated.
“It looks like it’s going to be on the roof for another five to 10 years,” Brian said. “We are faced with the same question again.”
