What Will It Require to Release the Next Game-Changing Solar Racking System?

Virtually everybody concurs that a railless domestic placing system like the one developed by Zep Solar speeds up installation and also boosts coordinations as compared to typical railed systems. While Zep Solar was and also is a darn excellent first-generation residential railless placing system, a lot of specialists located that its high hardware price did not validate their switching expenses– the labor time and buck cost savings, logistical improvements, and various other perks merely weren’t enough.

The exemption, as well as it’s a big one, was huge professionals like SolarCity and Vivint, which had the ability to offset the increased product price with significant improvements in their industry-leading everyday installment rates. Zep’s sale to SolarCity in 2013 for $158 million confirmed the worth of decreasing complete set up price with innovative mounting systems.

After SolarCity’s acquisition, all the other professionals that were making use of the system and most of the PV suppliers that place Zep’s grooved frame on their modules acquired “Zepped.” Simply puts, their investments in incorporating the system right into operations or making the non-standard component product were stranded.

Imagine for a moment that you have designers and teams of installers trained on a set apart placing system. Suddenly the business making the mission-critical equipment is offered to your direct competitor and also you understand that you have no choice but to switch over to something else. It will be fairly a mad scramble to get a new item selected, a new supply chain setup and also everybody retrained while trying your ideal to keep your projects opting for marginal interruption.

Making concerns worse, the years-long as well as effectively advertised legal drama between Zep Solar and also Westinghouse has made the installment and also production neighborhoods suspicious of brand-new entrants right into the railless placing room. The worry is that Zep’s new parent would pursue any type of affordable risk with its profile of patents and legal resources.

With these two problems fresh in every person’s mind, many teams are still understandably unwilling to make major adjustments to their basic items or operations because they may embrace a product that will end up being a frustration. This situation alters the competitive landscape, possibly suppresses advancement and reduces cost reduction.

That being stated, when first-generation systems demonstrate some success, industry reacts. Zep’s sale and the resulting product sector void have sent out the engineers back right into creation mode. A couple of brand-new railless products have actually attacked the marketplace, however so far, adoption has actually been slow-moving. We’re listening to that the industry has 3 primary criticisms about these brand-new offerings: high price, absence of needed attributes as well as copyright problems.

So exactly what would certainly it require to launch a new railless system that could become a game-changer? We’ve done a lot of thinking of just what the excellent qualities would be. Here’s our listing:

• Devoid of intellectual property concerns. We question that Elon    Musk, chairman of SolarCity, will be as thinking about sharing Zep licenses as he was in sharing Tesla’s patents. So see to it to stay away from potential claims.


• Quick as well as easy for installers. This is a crucial part of the worth proposition for railless devices. The system must cut real mount times down by hrs.


• Simple for the developers. The product must provide great deals of style versatility. It must adjust to roof vents as well as other seepages, angled or pyramid selections and also deal with a wide range of spans.


• Landscape and also picture installs. There is means way too much irregularity in roof covering setups to have a system that simply works one way or the other.


• Suitable with composite as well as floor tile roofs. The innovation has to be able to adapt to all the different roofing manufacturers’ products.


• Robust blinking and also roof securing. Among our essential duties is to protect our home from leakages, and we’ve discovered the best ways to do it. Keep it affordable as well as simple.


• Roof covering rafter accessory. This is a proven, structurally sound technique. We discovered the driving lesson long ago that systems screwed into just the deck could chill out in the near term.


• Incorporate the grounding. Eliminate point-to-point module ground cords. This lowers material cost, accelerate setup and decreases O&M costs.


• Easy elevation change as well as range progressing. It’s important that there’s enough array to compensate for bunches of roof disproportion.


• High stamina. Railless systems have some limitations, however the system needs to be able to withstand all but the highest snow and wind tons. This covers mostly all of the united state


• Low weight. It’s less complicated on the roof, decreases product costs, lowers delivery expenses and also bushes against future metal rate rises.


• Lessened components matter. The system should not need greater than a component or more to attach the PV modules to the roof. Every little thing else is superfluous.


• Criterion devices as well as equipment. Railless systems must have less equipment, so it’s important to standardize the nuts and bolts to cut the tool-count down.


• PV module-agnostic. Everybody really wants the alternative to pick their PV supplier and also component kind. Whether the module is low cost, high power, has incredibly aesthetics or different framework dimensions, the system must function.


• Top-notch visual appeals. A bunch of job has actually entered making components look terrific. See to it the mounting system suits the modules.

While numerous of these functions appear self-evident, the engineering effort to roll them right into one product is definitely non-trivial. A good deal of time, effort, resourcefulness and also resources will be called for to bring such an ingenious product to market.

And also what about the critical aspect of price? Late in 2012 at a  Media event, MJ Shiao dealt with the topic of railless mounting systems. One of his graphes reveals that in 2014, the equipment cost of available railless systems was higher than that of rail-based systems. We have actually included the appropriate column to show what we believe the installed expense of a domestic railless system could quickly be today.

Railed systems, which have actually dominated the marketplace for decades, have regarding reached their design limitations, and it’s tough to see numerous practical distinctions between the items now on the market. Methods such as increasing quantity, simplifying procedures as well as reducing margins supply some restricted potential for expense decrease, however supplier earnings will likely experience.

Railless items have the possibility to radically shift the price contour downward and potentially offer disruptive company designs. We think that over the following five years, the market will certainly adopt railless systems for the vast bulk of residential installations.

The railless change is coming. Lower hardware expenses, faster installs and enhanced coordinations will drive adoption by all professionals no matter size. Like other manufacturers in our industry, mounting system firms will need to reduce actual costs and also maintain their growth on lesser dollar-per-watt income. The leader, while unclear at the moment, will have a substantial opportunity to control this item sector, develop a considerable, lucrative business, as well as come to be the industry specification.

What Will It Require to Release the Next Game-Changing Solar Racking System?