Image: Joe Tegtmeyer
Boxes of solar panels, inverters and racking systems started appearing on the Tesla Gigafactory Texas roof recently – find out what’s being used.
One of the quirky things about Tesla is it doesn’t have an active public relations department these days – that was given the flick in 2020. So, aside from Elon Musk’s Twitter account1, financial reports and the occasional press release, a lot of Tesla “news” is based on leaks, rumours, theories and the efforts of really dedicated Tesla enthusiasts.
What’s A Giga Texas Anyway?
Also known as Gigafactory Texas, as the name suggests it’s a really big factory Tesla has been building on a 2,100-acre site near Austin. Giga Texas will produce the Cybertruck and Model Y.
The actual facility is reportedly 4.28 million square feet – that’s 397,625 square metres, 98 acres or a bit shy of 40 hectares. It’s rumoured we can expect a “HUGE” announcement from Elon Musk regarding the factory this week.
HUGE announcement or not, the facility is undoubtedly HUGE, has a shedload of roof space, and it’s no surprise Tesla is installing a bunch of solar panels on it. In the Tesla 2020 Impact Report released in August last year, Tesla noted Gigafactory Nevada had 3.2MW of solar panels installed at that point. More have been added since and the company expects 24MW to be in place on Gigafactory Nevada by the end of this year.
Longi, SolarEdge And Unirac
Among the the aforementioned Tesla enthusiasts is Joe Tegtmeyer, who has been keeping a really close eye on happenings at Giga Texas during its construction with some assistance from a drone.
On New Year’s Eve, Mr Tegmeyer noted on the west side roof area above the general assembly and temporary offices, a bunch of gear had been delivered. Among it were boxes with the word “Longi” stamped on them.
Longi is a China-based solar panel manufacturer, and one of the largest module producers in the world. Longi solar panels have been pretty popular in Australia for home and commercial solar projects. You can find specifications and estimated pricing on Longi models available here and compare them with others on SolarQuotes’ solar panel comparison table.
In a subsequent video update posted yesterday, Mr. Tegmeyer also identified what appears to be the inverters that will be used. They are from SolarEdge, an Israeli company. SolarEdge pioneered the concept of a solar inverter matched with individual ‘DC optimizers‘ on each solar panel. Among the benefits of optimizers is individual panel monitoring.
As with Longi panels, SolarEdge inverters have been pretty popular in Australia as well. But unlike Longi gear, which is mainly in the budget range, SolarEdge stuff is more towards the high-end on pricing compared to other inverter brands. Perhaps Tesla is heeding what is solid advice – not fussing so much about premium solar panel brands, but not skimping on inverter quality; as the solar inverter is the real workhorse of a solar power system.
As for racking, Mr. Tegmeyer pegs it as being Unirac mounting systems – a pretty popular brand in the USA for home and commercial solar installations, but not seen much in Australia as far as I know.
If you want to keep up with what’s happening at Gigafactory Texas, check out Joe Tegtmeyer’s regular updates on his Youtube channel. Here’s his latest report:
Footnotes
- The amount of effort that goes into analysing some of Elon Musk’s tweets would probably rival that spent on attempting to decrypt the prophecies of Nostradamus. Perhaps more. ↩
About Michael Bloch
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My assumption is that solar panels have a limited life and will need to be replaced. There are two problems here, disposing of the used panels and the cost(labor as well as material costs)which may well be in excess of the original . What is your comment.
Hi John.
You’re right solar panels have a limited life, but the assumed life of solar farms is now often 30 years, so it’s quite a while. These days its not hard to find solar panels with product warranties of 25 years.
When the solar panels do reach the end of their life they can be recycled. Alternatively, the aluminium frame can be stripped off and the rest tossed off the roof. I mean, it’s Texas. What’s anyone going to do about it?
What is a cost effective efficient design of a 100Kilowatt solar system with batteries for a data base with 50% of the load being night load