Sunflare Solar, a La Verne, California based company is offering a smart new set of patent-pending thin-film CIGs solar shingles called Capture 4.
The company began offering commercial versions of the shingle two months ago for both flat TPO-covered roofs and for pitched metal roofs, including carports. Within 18 months, the residential version will be available, once UL certification is complete.
All three shingle versions are based on a four-cell, 180 watt design.
The residential shingle design looks like a typical asphalt shingle, not something five times as thick, nor obviously a blend of the cells and base material. While some past designs of solar shingles have weighed in at 5 pounds, the Solarflare shingle is only 0.6 pounds only.
Because of the low weight of the shingle, loading a roof with bundles is not difficult. A 40 kW roof can be installed in just 20 minutes.
General advantages the Sunflare cells have over crystalline silicon cells is that the thin-film cells are 75% lighter and 95% thinner, the specs also highlight. Flexibility is imparted by a 0.127 mm stainless steel backbone in the Sunflare panels.
The waterproof panels are wind and cold proof, do not crack, and withstand high impact.
Roll these features together and top them off with a 90% energy generation efficiency during the first 10 years of life service, with a degradation of only 10% to 80% efficiency over the following 15 years of the warrantied lifetime of the panels.
Reference- Sunflare website, Cleantechnica