Integrated solar roofing firm GAF Energy has launched the “world’s first nailable solar shingle”, or rooftile, as part of its Timberline Solar roof system that integrates solar technology into rooftop structures.
The shingle, the Timberline Solar Energy Shingle (ES), has a depth of less than a quarter of an inch and “integrates with traditional shingles”.
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GAF Energy, sister company of North American roofing giant GAF and a subsidiary of Standard Industries, worked with Sandia National Laboratories, a US Department of Energy (DOE) research and development lab, to “verify the product’s strength, durability, and overall market-readiness”.
It now has plans to roll out the new technology across rooftops throughout North America. A quarter of the five million new roofs installed on US homes each year comes from GAF, according to a company media release, and GAF Energy said it was “uniquely positioned to bring residential solar to the mass market”.
The increasing collaboration between home services companies and solar rooftop providers has been a notable trend in the industry last year, with BayWa r.e. exploring the potential to team up with roofing company Beacon to offer solar and roofing services simultaneously, for example.
“Solar roofs are the future of clean energy, and Timberline Solar is the game-changing innovation that will get us there,” said Martin DeBono, president of GAF Energy.
“At GAF Energy, we have the capacity to scale this technology like no one else through GAF, bringing an integrated solar product that is weatherproof, affordable, and design-minded to homeowners across the country.”
In September last year, Timberline Solar achieved safety certification company UL’s ‘7103 certification’, which enables GAF Energy to install the system on residential roofs as a roofing product as well as a solar energy product – the first of its kind to be recognised as both, according to GAF Energy.
The rooftile will be assembled at GAF Energy’s manufacturing and R&D facility in San Jose, California, which the company onshored in the middle of last year, moving operations back from Asia in attempt to capitalise on the demand for rooftop solar in the US.