Simultaneous production of fresh water and electricity via multistage solar photovoltaic membrane distillation
The energy shortage and clean water scarcity are two key challenges for global sustainable development. Near half of the total global water withdrawals is consumed by power generation plants while water desalination consumes lots of electricity. Here, we demonstrate a photovoltaics-membrane distillation (PV-MD) device that can stably produce clean water (1.64 kg·m −2 ·h −1 ) from seawater while simultaneously having uncompromised electricity generation performance (11%) under one Sun irradiation. Its high clean water production rate is realized by constructing multi stage membrane distillation (MSMD) device at the backside of the solar cell to recycle the latent heat of water vapor condensation in each distillation stage. This composite device can significantly reduce capital investment costs by sharing the same land and the same mounting system and thus represents a potential possibility to transform an electricity power plant from otherwise a water consumer to a fresh water producer.
Introduction
Water and energy are inextricably linked and the intimate water-energy nexus is being increasingly felt globally, as water security is becoming a threat to energy security and vice versa 1,2. In the United States and Western Europe, about 50% of water withdrawals are for energy production 3,4. On the other hand, clean water production, especially seawater desalination, consumes huge amount of electricity. In Arab countries, for example, more than 15% of the total national electricity is consumed by fresh water production industry 5. It has been reported that 1~10% of clean water produced in electricity-driven seawater desalination process is fed back to power plant to generate the electricity consumed during desalination process 6,7. The ramifications of the water-energy nexus have been greatly aggravated especially in arid and semi-arid regions.
The current share of nonrenewable fossil fuels in the global energy mix is still larger than 82% and the burning of fossil fuels leads to a massive CO2 emission, which is regarded as a major threat to the global sustainability 8. Great effort has been made to adopt renewable energy sources, among which solar energy has shown its immense potential to meet the world’s future energy demands given its vast abundance and free availability. Huge amount of photovoltaics (PV) panels (400 GW) have been installed all over the world to generate electricity from solar energy with minimal CO2 emission and water consumption. For 1 MWh electricity generation, PV technology consumes only 2 gallons of water while thermal power plants using coal and nuclear fuel as energy source consume 692 and 572 gallons of water, respectively 9. However, solar irradiation has a quite low energy intensity, generally in the range of 4–8 kW m −2 per day for the most parts of the world 10. over, only about 10–20% of the energy from sunlight can be converted to electricity by the state-of-the-art commercial PV panels 11. As a result, for a medium-sized solar power plant of 400 MW, it would need to collect sunlight from at least an entire 2 million m 2 land area. Besides the cost of the solar panels and land procurement, mounting system supporting the panels on such a large area adds further capital cost of solar power plant 11.
Solar distillation has recently attracted considerable attention and has demonstrated promising potentials in various processes aimed at seawater desalination 12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20. potable water production from quality-impaired water sources 21,22. wastewater volume reduction 20. metal extraction and recycling 23. and sterilization 24. etc. However, similar to the solar-to-electricity conversion, the inherent low energy intensity of solar irradiation leads to a small fresh water production rate in conventional solar distillation, 0.5–4.0 kg m −2 in a whole day, equivalent to water production rate of 0.3–0.7 kg m −2 h −1 under the standard one Sun illumination condition (1 kW m −2 ) 16,25,26. The low productivity necessitates large land area and installation of mounting system to support distillation setup, which constrains its economic benefit, similar to the case of PV power plants. Very recently, solar-driven multistage membrane distillation (MSMD) devices have been reported with a much higher clean water productivity, 3 kg m −2 h −1 in a 10-stage device under one Sun illumination, by recycling the latent heat released during vapor condensation in each stage as the heat source for the next stage 27,28.
The concept of simultaneous production of clean water and electricity by solar energy has been recently investigated by several groups 29,30,31. In most of these attempts, solar distillation was utilized for clean water production and some side effects of the solar distillation were utilized for electricity generation, which led to low solar-to-electricity energy efficiency (1.3%). The low electricity generation efficiency of these strategies makes it uneconomical to apply them in commercial power plant.
In this work, we report a strategy for simultaneous production of fresh water and electricity by an integrated solar PV panel-membrane distillation (PV-MD) device in which a PV panel is employed as both photovoltaic component for electricity generation and photothermal component for clean water production. In a typical solar cell, 80–90% of the absorbed solar energy is undesirably converted to heat, and thereafter passively and wastefully dumped into the ambient air 32. In this work, a MSMD device is integrated on the backside of a commercial solar cell to directly utilize its waste heat as a heat source to drive water distillation. Under one Sun illumination, the water production rate of the PV-MD is 1.79 kg m −2 h −1 for a 3-stage device, which is three times higher than that of the conventional solar stills. At the same time, the PV panel generates electricity with energy efficiency higher than 11%, which is the same as that recorded on the same PV panel without the back MD device and which is at least 9 times higher than those achieved in the previously published works. The undoubted benefit of the integration of PV and water distillation is the highly efficient co-generation of clean water and electricity in one device at the same time on the same land, which directly reduces land area requirement and the cost of the mounting system as compared to two physically separate systems (PV and solar distillation). over, working directly with commercial solar cells makes the PV-MD device close to practical applications. This strategy provides a potential possibility to transform an electricity generation plant from otherwise a water consumer to a fresh water producer.
Results
Structure of the MSMD device
The solar cell harvests short wavelength sunlight to generate electricity via photovoltaic effect, which results in a high solar-to-electricity energy efficiency. Large amount of waste heat is simultaneously generated as a side effect during electricity generation from two pathways. The first one is the relaxation of short-wavelength sunlight excited electrons and the second pathway is photothermal conversion of the long-wavelength sunlight. The waste heat is regarded as a burden in conventional solar power plants and is directly dumped into ambient air as waste. In our design, the heat is considered as resource and is delicately utilized as energy source to power PV-MD device to produce clean water.
In this work, a commercial polycrystalline silicon solar cell from Sharp was adopted both as electricity generation component and photothermal component. A lab-made MSMD device was constructed on the backside of the solar cell for clean water production (Fig. 1a and Supplementary Fig. 1). In order to reduce heat loss into the ambient environment, the sides of the PV-MD device were sealed by polyurethane (PU) foam with low thermal conductivity (0.022~0.033 W m −1 K −1 ) 33.
Each stage of the MSMD device was composed of four separate layers: a top thermal conduction layer, a hydrophilic porous layer of water evaporation layer, a hydrophobic porous layer of MD membrane for vapor permeation, and a water vapor condensation layer. Aluminum nitride (AlN) plate was used as the thermal conduction layer because of its extremely high thermal conductivity (160 W m −1 K −1 ) and its anti-corrosion property in salty water 34. The hydrophobic porous layer was made of an electrospun porous polystyrene (PS) membrane. The water evaporation layer and condensation layer were of the same material, a commercial hydrophilic quartz glass fibrous (QGF) membrane with non-woven fabric structure.
In each stage of the MSMD device (Supplementary Fig. 2), the heat is conducted through the thermal conduction layer to the underlying hydrophilic porous layer. The source water inside the hydrophilic porous layer is thus heated up to produce water vapor. The water vapor passes through the hydrophobic porous membrane layer and ultimately condenses on the condensation layer to produce liquid clean water. The driving force for the water evaporation and vapor condensation is the vapor pressure difference caused by the temperature gradient between the evaporation and condensation layers. In each stage, the latent heat of water vapor, which is released during the condensation process, is utilized as the heat source to drive water evaporation in the next stage. The multistage design ensures the heat can be repeatedly reused to drive multiple water evaporation–condensation cycles. In a traditional solar still, the heat generated from the sunlight via photothermal effect only drives one water evaporation–condensation cycle, which sets up an upper theoretical ceiling of the clean water production rate, ~1.60 kg m 2 h −1. under one-Sun condition in such a system. The multistage design makes possible to break the theoretical limit as demonstrated very recently by two groups 27,28.
In this work, two source water flow modes, namely, dead-end mode and cross-flow mode, are designed for the MSMD device (Fig. 1). In the dead-end mode, the source water is passively wicked into the evaporation layer by hydrophilic quartz glass fibrous membrane strips via capillary effect. In this case, the concentration of salts and other non-volatile matters in the evaporation layer keeps increasing till reaching saturation in the end. A washing operation is indispensable to remove the salts accumulated inside the device for this mode, as reported in the previous works 28. However, the passive water flow reduces the complexity of the device and gives a high water production rate in the early stage for this operation mode. In the cross-flow mode, the source water flows into the device driven by gravity or by a mechanical pump, and, it flows out of the device before reaching saturation. In this case, the outgoing water flow will take away a small amount of sensible heat, leading to a slight drop in clean water productivity in the early stage. However, it solves the salt accumulation problem and avoids the need for frequent cleaning and salt removal operation, which makes the device suitable for long-term operation.
In some experiments, a commercial spectrally selective absorber (SSA) (ETA@Al, Alanod Solar) was used to replace the PV panel for clean water production performance evaluation. This material can decrease the radiation heat loss during operation because it possesses a much smaller emissivity than PV panels, and that is why it was adopted in both of the previous works on solar membrane distillation 28. We use the SSA-MD device to confirm that the multistage MD device we fabricated in this work is comparable with the state-of-the-art solar membrane distillation devices.
Solar absorptance of the SSA and photovoltaic cell
Where I(λ) and A(λ) represent the light intensity and absorption of a material at different wavelength. The solar absorptance of the solar cell used in this work is calculated to be 0.87, indicating 87% solar energy is harvested by the solar cell. The thermal emissivity of the solar cell is evaluated to be 0.930 (Supplementary Fig. 3 and Supplementary Note 1). It has been reported that most commercial solar cells possess high light absorption and high emissivity because they are designed to capture as much sunlight as possible and dump the waste heat as fast as possible 36,37. In comparison, the commercial SSA material shows efficient absorption (95%) in short wavelength region (1600 nm), which is the characteristic of SSA type materials. The solar absorptance and emissivity of the SSA material are 0.94 and 0.123, respectively, which are similar to those reported in literatures 38,39.
Clean water and electricity production performance
The clean water production performance of a multistage SSA-MD device operated in dead-end mode was firstly evaluated in a lab-made setup (Fig. 3a), with pure water as the source water. The average water production rate, calculated from the slope of the mass change curve at the steady state (Fig. 3b), was 2.78 kg m −2 h −1 for 3-stage SSA-MD and was 3.25 kg m −2 h −1 for 5-stage SSA-MD (Supplementary Fig. 4), which is about 5 times the fresh water production rate of the state-of-the-art conventional solar stills. The multistage MD device fabricated in this work is comparable to the state-of-the-art multistage MD devices 27,28.
When the SSA material was replaced with the solar cell as photothermal component in the 3-stage PV-MD device and the PV-MD was not connected to an external circuit, i.e. the solar cell was used just as a photothermal material and the absorbed solar energy was converted to heat exclusively without any electricity output, the average water production rate was 1.96 kg m −2 h −1 (Fig. 3c), which is 29.5% lower than that of the 3-stage SSA-MD device. This significant decrease of clean water production for PV-MD can be attributed to its slightly lower solar energy harvesting and much more radiation heat loss, which will be discussed later.
For SSA-MD with 3-stage structure, after reaching the steady state, the temperature of the conduction layer from top to bottom was 61.8, 55.1, 47.5 and 38.4 °C (Fig. 3d). The corresponding temperature difference between the top surface of the water evaporation layer and bottom surface of the condensation layers in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd stage of the SSA-MD device was 6.7 °C, 7.6 °C and 9.1 °C, respectively. A MD stage working at higher temperature gives higher energy utilization efficiency as reported in numerous literatures 40,41,42.
The water production rate in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd stage of the 3 stage SSA-MD was 1.07, 0.89, and 0.75 kg·m −2 ·h −1. respectively (Fig. 3e, f). The water production rates of the 2nd and 3rd stage were equivalent to 83% and 84% of the 1st and 2nd stages, respectively, indicating a high latent heat recovery rate. It should be pointed out that this result does not mean that only ~83% of the latent heat was recycled by the next MD stage and the rest was lost. Actually, since the device was well sealed by the PU foam in all side surface, the heat loss through the side surface is negligible, and therefore the heat flux in all these three MD stages is almost the same. The decrease in clean water production rate is mainly because of the lower working temperature in the 2nd and 3r d stages, which led to a lower clean water production efficiency.
The water production performance of the 3-stage PV-MD was next further investigated by connecting the solar cell to an external circuit with different resistances. When the device was working under one-Sun illumination with pure water as source water, the temperature of the solar cell, which is slightly affected by the external resistance, was measured to be approximately 58 °C. Since the performance of the solar cell is affected by its working state temperature, the J–V curve of the solar cell at working state (58 °C) was measured under one-Sun illumination condition with simultaneous clean water and electricity production operation (Fig. 4a). Based on the J–V curve, the largest output power was 138 mW for this solar cell, which was achieved under an optimal load of 1.3 Ω with a current of 0.32 A and output voltage of 0.43 V. Although the effective working area of the MSMD device (4.0 cm × 4.0 cm) was 16 cm 2. the effective working area for the solar cell was only 11.9 cm 2 (Supplementary Fig. 5). The energy efficiency of the solar cell under this condition was calculated to be 11.6%.
When the solar cell was connected to a resistance with its optimal load (1.3 Ω), the same PV-MD exhibited a water production rate of 1.79 kg m −2 h −1 (Fig. 4b, c), which is 8.7% lower than that without electricity output. When the resistance of the load was increased to 3.2 and 6.0 Ω, the output power was decreased to 84 and 50 mW, with an increase of output voltage to 0.52 and 0.53 V, respectively. The water production rates were 1.82 and 1.88 kg m −2 h −1 for these two cases, respectively (Fig. 4b, c). These results indicate that the water production rate is only slightly affected by the extraction of electricity from the system, which is expected. Overall, the device gave a high clean water productivity ( 1.79 kg m −2 h −1 ) given that about 11% solar energy was extracted from the PV-MD device to produce electricity.
The clean water production performance of the 3-stage dead-end PV-MD device under solar illumination with different light intensity was also investigated and the results are presented in Fig. 4d–f. The average water production rates under 0.6, 0.8, 1.0, 1.2, and 1.4 Sun illumination were measured to be 0.92, 1.39, 1.82, 2.31, and 2.65 kg m −2 h −1. respectively (Fig. 4d, e). The relationship between the clean water production rate and solar irradiation intensity was linear (Supplementary Fig. 6) and the electricity generation efficiency of the solar cell was stable at around 11.1~11.6% under different solar irradiation. These results demonstrate that the PV-MD device possesses excellent clean water production and stable electricity generation performance under varying solar intensity.
One targeted application of PV-MD is to generate electricity and at the same time produce clean water from various source water with impaired quality, such as seawater, brackish water, contaminated surface water, and groundwater. When 3.5% NaCl aqueous solution was used as a seawater surrogate, the clean water production rate was 1.77 kg m −2 h −1 in open circuit state and 1.71 kg m −2 h −1 in the optimal load state (1.3 Ω). These two values are both lower than those recorded when pure water was used as source water (Fig. 4), which should be attributed to the decrease of the saturation vapor pressure of the salt water 35. For the devices operated at dead-end mode, the salt concentration of the source water in the evaporation layer would gradually increase during operation, leading to a slight decrease in clean water production rate (Supplementary Fig. 7). The concentrated source water inside the device can be sucked out of the device by a dry paper via capillary effect. Although not all the NaCl salt was removed in this way, the performance of the device could be nearly fully recovered in the next operation cycle. Figure 5a shows the clean water production rate of the dead-end device measured in five operation cycles. In cycle 1, 3, and 5, the solar cell was not connected to external circuit, while in cycle 2 and 4, the solar cell was connected to external circuit (Fig. 5a). The result clearly demonstrates that this device can be regenerated from salt accumulation state with fully recovered performance. The concentration of Na in the collected condensate water in each cycle was always lower than 7 ppm, which is only 0.02% of the source water and much lower than the World Health Organization (WHO) drinking water standard (Fig. 5b). In another experiment, PV-MD with dead-end mode was used to produce clean water from a heavy metal-contaminated seawater. The PV-MD device exhibited a clean water production rate of 1.69 kg m −2 h −1 under one-Sun illumination (Supplementary Fig. 7). The concentrations of the ions in the source water and clean water product were measured and shown in Fig. 5c. For the collected clean water, the concentrations of Na. Ca 2. and Mg 2 decreased to be lower than 4 ppm while the concentrations of Pb 3 and Cu 2 decreased to almost zero and 0.02 ppm, respectively. All of the ion concentrations are below the WHO drinking water standards 43. These results convincingly indicate a perfect desalination performance via the membrane distillation process.
In a PV-MD device operated at dead-end mode, the salts from the source water will continuously accumulate inside the evaporation layer during operation as mentioned above, which may cause failure and damage if salt crystals block the pores of the MD membrane. Although the salt can be cleaned out of the device by frequent regeneration operation as discussed earlier, it deems not practical for long-term operation and large-scale application. Therefore, we further designed a 3-stage PV-MD device that can be operated at cross-flow mode to solve the salt accumulation problem (Fig. 1b). In this device, source water flow layer (recycle layer) was added at the bottom part to recycle the heat for the purpose of pre-heating the source water before it enters into the evaporation layer. When the water outlet of this 3-stage cross-flow type PV-MD device was blocked, i.e., it was operated in a dead-end mode with no water flowing out of the device, the clean water production rate was 2.09 kg·m −2 h −1 (Supplementary Fig. 8) with pure water as source water, which is 7% higher than that recorded on the dead-end type device under the otherwise same conditions (1.96 kg·m −2 h −1 ) (Fig. 1a). This result suggests that adding source water flow layer at the bottom to recycle the heat can improve the clean water productivity.
When the water outlet of the 3-stage cross-flow type PV-MD device was opened and the flow rate of the source water was controlled to be 5 g h −1. which is about two times the water production rate in the dead-end condition, the clean water production rate was slightly decreased to 1.93 kg m −2 h −1. This can be explained by the fact that some sensible heat was carried away by the outgoing water flow at the outlet. When the flow rate of the source water was increased to 6 and 7 g h −1. the clean water production rates were further decreased to 1.83 and 1.76 kg;m −2 h −1. respectively. These results indicate that the clean water production rate was only slightly affected by the flow rate of the source water because the outgoing water contains only small amount of sensible heat.
The seawater desalination performance of the 3-stage PV-MD device with cross-flow mode was then evaluated and is presented in Supplementary Fig. 8. The flow rate of the source water was controlled at 5 g h −1 to avoid continuous salt accumulation inside the device and the device exhibited a very stable clean water production rate of 1.65 kg m −2 h −1 under one-Sun illumination in a 3-day continuous test. In this case, a continuous concentrated source water stream steadily flowed out of the device, keeping the salt concentration at a steady state inside the device. The salt concentration of the source and concentrated seawater was 3.8 wt% and 8.7 wt%, respectively. Although the clean water production rate was slightly lower when the device was operated under this condition, comparing to dead-end mode, its long-term clean water production stability outweighs its slightly reduced rate. Field tests of a large PV-MD device were conducted and the details can be found in Supplementary Fig. 9 and Supplementary Note 2.
Discussion
In the MSMD device, the latent heat released during vapor condensation process in each MD stage is reused as the energy source for the next MD stage. Therefore, the heat generated by the photothermal component is thus reused for multiple evaporation–condensation cycles. As a result, the clean water production rates of both 3-stage SSA-MD and PV-MD, e.g., 2.78 and 1.96 kg m −2 h −1. are several times higher than that of conventional solar stills and even break the theoretical limit of a perfectly full utilization of solar irradiation of one Sun intensity within the conventional one-stage device. The large clean water production rate is a great advantage of this type of newly developed multistage MD devices comparing to conventional solar stills (Supplementary Table 1).
The energy balance scheme of this PV-MD device is different from the conventional solar stills and conventional membrane distillation devices (Supplementary Fig. 2). When it is exposed under sunlight with intensity of qS, most of the solar energy is captured by the solar cell (qA) depending on its solar absorptance (α), and the rest is lost as the reflected sunlight. The total energy obtained from sunlight (one Sun condition) by SSA and PV (Sharp) is thus calculated to be 930 and 870 W·m −2. respectively. Part of the captured solar energy is converted to electricity (qe) for PV-MD, depending of the efficiency of the solar cell (η), which is generally in the range of 10–20% for a commercial solar cell. The rest of the absorbed solar energy is converted to heat (qh). Their relation can be described as follows:
Residential Flat-Roof Mount Solar Systems
Our residential flat-roof solar systems can be mounted flush or tilted up to accommodate any residential flat-roof solar system design. We design and supply roof-mounted systems for tar and gravel, torch down, membrane, concrete, and all other types of flat roofs. The wide variety of ways to mount a solar system to a flat roof include traditional penetrated solar stanchions with flashing and non-penetrating ballasted solar panel mounts. Solar panels can be mounted on flat roofs without drilling. Ballast mounts are easy to install and have no hole drilling damage to the roof. Non-penetrating flat-roof mounts are designed without penetrations of the roof cladding. Flat-roof solar panel mounting solutions are available from established manufacturers like Prosolar, SnapNRack, Quick Mount PV and Schletter.
Flush Mounted Flat Roof
Flush/Flat Mounting Options
- Mounting options for all flat-roof types
- Gravel and tar roofs
- Membrane roofs
- Many solar rail and clamp mounting options
- Low-penetration options span up to 8 ft
Flush Mount Solar System Review
Tilt-Up Penetrated Roof
Tilt-up Penetrating Mount Options
- SES’s most popular tilt-up mount
- Non-penetration options for membrane roofs
- With or without thermal separation
- Virtually any flat roof
- Solar panel roof penetrating systems
Tilt-Up Penetrated Roof Mount Review
Self-Ballasted Roof Mounted
Non-Penetrating Mounting Options
- Low-cost ballast-mounted solar systems
- Easy installation
- No penetrations required
- Consideration for all flat-roof solar projects
Ballasted Roof Mount Review
We know home flat-roof mounted solar systems!
Perfect for the contractor or handy homeowner / builder working with an electrician.
Since 1996, Solar Electric Supply has been providing residential customers with many different flat-roof mounting systems. We assure our customers that the solar panel mounts that Solar Electric Supply carryies come from reputable manufacturers like Prosolar, Schletter, SnapNRack and Renusol.
Their long-standing track records maintain high quality products, positive history, proven cost effectiveness and high customer focused value. SES offer’s both packaged and custom complete systems for the DIY homeowner or contractor looking for a low price on residential flat-roof solar systems and components that offer true product satisfaction. You will find some of the more popular solar panels, grid-tie inverters, and system components at a low price for your flat-roof mounted residential grid-tie solar panel system.
All systems can be customized!
Different module mount, module, inverter and voltage options are available.
Manage the project yourself.
Save thousands of dollars!
Buy at low wholesale direct from Solar Electric Supply
State and Federal rebate incentives are available.
Many states and municipalities offer significant incentives to encourage installing a solar system. Federal tax incentives are also available. Click here for more incentive information. All systems we carry follow the strict guidelines set by government agencies for incentive eligibility. These systems are specifically designed to meet all rebate incentives offered by many states. We provide all of the necessary documentation for inspection.
Generous solar system rebates are available for California, Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, Nevada and New Jersey. We help relieve high energy rates with solar power in Hawaii, Bermuda, Guam, American Somoa, Fiji, Tahiti, Micronesia and Marshall Islands. Systems can be engineered for these rebate incentives at a very competitive discount price.
Installing a solar system doesn’t have to be expensive. In fact, there are several programs available to help you save thousands on a complete solar system from Solar Electric Supply.
Would you like this system installed?
Please fill out our quote form for details on installation through one of our authorized installers in your area.
Contact Our Friendly, Knowledgeable Staff
You can speak with an experienced, knowledgeable and friendly representative with a simple phone call. Contact us toll-free at (877) 297-0014 and someone will be happy to help you with all aspects of the design, system cost and rebate incentives for your sloped roof mounted solar system.
Solar Panels on a Flat Roof: 5 Things to Know
Yes, you can successfully install solar panels on the flat roof of your home or business. However, there are some challenges to be aware of.
Flat roofs have a minimal slope allowance that will accommodate solar PV panel systems. A roof having a rise of 0.25 inches over a 12-inch run — known as a 0.25:12 pitch roof — is considered a flat roof. These roofs are also commonly known as:
Flat and low pitch roofs do provide some challenges for installers, but there are a number of solutions to adapt a solar system to unique roof types.
Skip to 12:15 to hear Rex and Patrick discuss the main solar solutions for different kinds of flat roofing on Solar.com LIVE!
The challenges of installing solar panels on a flat roof
The key to a successful flat roof installation is identifying obstacles early in the process. Here are some structures to consider before installing solar panels on a flat roof:
- Drains
- Vents
- Exhaust fans
- Rooftop units
- Curbs
- Parapets
The key to overcoming these challenges is identifying them early on and choosing an experienced installer that can confidently navigate them. With hundreds of carefully vetted installers and dedicated Energy Advisors, the solar.com marketplace is a great place to start.
things to consider when installing solar panels on a flat roof
You can install solar panels on a flat roof
Installing solar panels on a flat roof takes a little extra consideration, but you can do it! There are a number of flat roof mounting techniques available on the market to accommodate your roof, and an expert energy engineer can to get you on the right path to a successful solar panel installation.
Your main concern as a homeowner is to find an experienced and reputable installer to handle the job!
Costs are on par with the typical pitched roof
Not only are flat roofs a viable solar electricity producing surface, but the cost can be on par with that of standard sloped roof installation. Use this solar calculator to get a ballpark of how much solar would cost for you home and how much you can save by going solar.
Your solar panels may or may not be tilted
When installing solar panels on your flat roof, the resulting product can be tilted or not. There two main factors in the design of a successful solar panel system generating maximum electricity:
An optimum tilt angle and orientation of your solar panels on a flat roof will ensure top energy production performance of your system. Only top manufacturers give warranties on panels installed at an angle of fewer than two degrees.
Although these warranties exist and make sense in some situations, you’ll need to weigh the production difference when installing your solar panels horizontally – or near horizontally.
There are higher risks for leakage because of pooling
Compared to standard sloped roofs that direct water to eaves and gutters, flat roofs tend to collect water in certain areas. This is known as pooling or ponding.
Even without solar panels, pooling poses a risk of leakage and water damage to your home. So this may be something to address before going solar.
Pooling increases the risk of water leaking into the drill holes used to mount solar systems — it’s just the nature of the beast.
While pooling and leakage are are certainly something to consider, there are options for minimizing this risk. Instead of drilling into the roof to attach the solar panels, installers can use ballast (weights to keep the solar system in place) or a combination of ballast and drilled attachments to reduce the number holes and the risk of leakage.
Optimal energy performance can be achieved through any of these flat roof solar panel installation methods. However, it’s important to raise this concern early in the design process.
Solar panels on flat roofs may require frequent cleaning
Solar panels on a standard pitched roof tend to clean themselves when precipitation washes down them. In fact, just a slight degree of tilt – 3 to 4 degrees – can help keep solar panels clean when it rains.
However, flat panels tend to collect water, dust, and debris, which can reduce electricity generation by up to 10 percent. So if you install entirely flat solar panels, you’ll need to perform more frequent cleanings to maximize your generation and savings.
That’s not the end of the world. Solar panels can be cleaned with a quick dusting, spray of a hose, or wipe of a squeegee.
However, if you’d rather not spend more time cleaning your panels, raise this concern early in the design process.
How to find solar panel installers for a flat roof
As we’ve mentioned throughout the article, the key to successfully installing solar panels on a flat roof is finding an experienced and reputable installer to do it.
Solar.com is a free online marketplace offering potential the best pricing quotes from a carefully-vetted network of installers. In fact, we accept just 30% of solar installers that apply to join our network (we’re that picky).
Through the solar.com marketplace, you’ll be paired with a dedicated Energy Advisor that will help you:
- Design a solar system that meets your goals
- Find qualified solar installers in your local area
- Compare quotes, equipment options, and warranties
- Line up financing options
- Take advantage of federal, state, and local solar incentives (like the 30% federal tax credit!)
Start a solar project today with multiple quotes from vetted installers.
Solar Ready Roofing Systems
With the long-term watertight integrity of Duro-Last Roofing Systems and prefabricated accessories along with pre-made rack flashings available, we offer solutions for any rack-mounted commercial rooftop solar application.
Rooftop Solar Systems
Rooftops are an excellent place to install solar systems because they are typically unused and unobstructed spaces. Rooftop solar (or photovoltaic – PV) systems have increased in popularity due to technological improvements, and the need for alternative energy sources because of rising costs and environmental concerns.
Rooftop solar systems that are designed for commercial buildings with flat roofs can be rack mounted (with ballasted or attached racks) or adhered directly to the roof surface. While an adhered solar system will involve fewer penetrations that require flashing, it also restricts access to much of the roof. A rack-mounted system can allow access to the roof, but very secure flashing methods must be used to avoid compromising roof integrity.
Ballasted rack-mounted systems can allow roof access and have a limited number of penetrations that must be flashed, but wind loads, seismic loads, and weight may be issues. Utilizing a rooftop to locate PV is not without risks – one of which is the potential to compromise the waterproof barrier that is the roofing system.
Additional Considerations
Installing solar systems on a flat rooftop requires careful consideration of more than just the efficiency and effectiveness of the system for electricity generation. It also requires consideration of the underlying roofing membrane and maintaining its integrity.
Why Duro-Last?
Duro-Last Roofing Systems are particularly effective for rack-mounted rooftop solar systems. It’s precision-fabricated to fit each building, and delivered to the job site with up to 85% of membrane seaming completed in our factory. Custom prefabricated flashings for roof-penetrating support structures eliminate most rooftop labor from these critical areas. Pre-made rack flashing can mean a faster roofing system installation as well.
Solar Roofing Case Study
Learn about how Duro-Last provided a solar-ready roofing solution for the famed Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco, California.
A Sustainable Focus
Being a solar ready roofing material is just one way that makes Duro-Last a sustainable roofing option. Click above to learn more about Duro-Last’s sustainability efforts.
© Holcim Solutions and Products US, LLC 525 Morley Drive, Saginaw, Mi 48601 800-248-0280