Thinking of going solar? Wait until you need a new roof

Not too long ago, Bryan and Summer Stubblefield wanted to outfit their California home with solar panels. They were considering an electric vehicle, and powering it with the sun seemed like the right choice for both their pocketbook and the planet.

They contacted a few contractors, who provided quotes in the $28,000 range for the solar system. But each bid came with a caveat: Photovoltaic panels can last 25 years or more, but the roof on their 2,000-square-foot home had about 10 years left in it. This made for a difficult decision: Pay for a replacement now, which would nearly double the cost of the project, or install all that hardware knowing they’d need to remove and reinstall it when it came time to reroof — a job that can cost hundreds of dollars per panel.

“At that point we froze,” said Bryan Stubblefield. “The fact that we had one more decision to make caused pause.”

What is the condition of the roof

The Stubblefields are far from alone in this dilemma, said Amy Atchley, one of the contractors the couple contacted. Among the first questions her company, Amy’s Roofing and Solar, asks a customer is the age and condition of their roof. About half need work done to accommodate solar and, she says, the path forward can be particularly vexing for those who still have five, 10, or even 15 years to go before needing a reroof.

“It’s really hard to counsel people,” she said. “Most people just decide to wait.”

Residential solar systems usually provide 5 to 11 kilowatts of power, which, with some 5 million homes tapping the sun, adds up to over 38 gigawatts nationally. That’s the equivalent of more than 11,000 wind turbines. Aside from helping mitigate climate change, photovoltaic panels can also help provide resiliency against outages. But when homeowners have to align their desire to go green with the age of their roof, those benefits can be delayed — or frightfully expensive.

Lack of tax incentives

One reason the question can be so vexing is because unlike solar panels, tax incentives don’t help offset underlying roof issues — even when addressing them is done while going solar. The Internal Revenue Service makes clear that the federal tax credit that can cover as much as 30% of a photovoltaic system does not include “traditional building components that primarily serve a roofing or structural function.”

The Stubblefields said the lack of assistance “absolutely” influenced their decision to wait. But Bryan Stubblefield said he understands that it would be quite expensive for the government to subsidize such a major expense.

The potentially good news is that — regardless of roofing incentives — the residential solar market is nascent enough that it may not yet need to worry much about losing customers like the Stubblefields. The half a million or so residential solar systems that come online each year is far short of the 5 million or so homes that need a new roof each year. That means that there are still plenty of potential solar customers who need a new roof anyway — and it’s a demographic that many companies are targeting.

Get a new roof and go solar

“The best time to go solar is when you’re getting a new roof,” said Kealy Dewitt, vice president of marketing and public policy at the roofing company GAF. The organization recently designed a product it calls Timberline Solar, which incorporates a photovoltaic panel into a shingle that is installed much like a conventional shingle. If GAF can get more people who need new roofs to convert to solar shingles, Dewitt said it would be “a massive deployment opportunity for clean energy.”

Atchley agrees. Although there may be some situations where it makes financial sense to install panels and dismantle them later to reroof, waiting to do it all at once makes the most sense. Many of her customers find her while seeking bids for a roof and end up installing solar too. It rarely happens the other way around, she said.

Like Dewitt, she thinks the government could do more to incentivize integrated roofing and photovoltaic technologies. Her company, for example, sells a metal roof designed to easily accept solar and have a lifespan almost twice that of the average panel. It doesn’t currently qualify for clean energy incentives.

“You’re getting the roof and solar,” she said. “It should count.”

In an aerial view, solar panels are seen on the roof of building in an apartment complex in San Rafael, Calif.

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Justin Sullivan

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Getty Images

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Lawmakers have tried to address this issue. In 2021, Democratic members of Congress introduced the “RAISE the Roof Act” that would have expanded the solar tax credit to include these integrated solutions. Such efforts have gone nowhere, however, leaving many would-be solar adopters with difficult calculations to make about their roof. That includes the Stubblefields, who have since moved.

“It looks like we have about five to 10 years left on the roof,” said Bryan. “We’re faced with the same question again.”