Tesla has published the patent 'Sidelap interconnect for photovoltaic roofing modules'

Tesla is a rapidly growing company that works in several areas. The company's solar business is now on the rise and will soon bring a high income.

In October, Tesla has launched the third iteration of its Solar Roof tile for residential home use. Earlier versions of the roofs from the company were a bit of an experiment and Tesla tried to find out for itself some of the details of the production and installation. This allowed the company to develop a more advanced product. At the moment, the company's goal is to develop a process that will quickly and efficiently install the Solar Roof.

April 15, 2020 Tesla published the patent 'Sidelap interconnect for photovoltaic roofing modules'. It describes methods and apparatus for assembling a roof structure, which includes photovoltaic modules as roof tiles. According to the patent, lateral overlap is used to establish a constant distance between the solar tiles and prevent water from accumulating between adjacent tiles under the solar tiles, directing water passing through the solar tiles and redirecting water down the roof. In some embodiments, the sidelaps can have additional functionality. For example, a sidelap can include tabs configured to interact with lateral securing features positioned on downward-facing surfaces of the solar roofing modules to help keep the lateral sides of the photovoltaic modules from pulling away from the roofing structure during severe weather conditions. The sidelap could also include means for attaching a wire clip to one end of the sidelap.

It discloses a Solar Roof structure, which includes: a first portion of a photovoltaic laminate embedded in a first roof module, a second photovoltaic element embedded in a second tile next to the first tile. The lamination zone and the side fence, including leveling tabs located between the first roof module and the second roof module, leveling tabs set the minimum clearance between the first roof module and the second roof module.

Source: Tesla patent

The patent also discloses a method of installing a Solar Roof module, which includes the following elements: installing roof tiles and a water rail on the roof of the building, placing the first solar roof module on two parallel roof tiles.

Tesla has developed an excellent product and is constantly striving to improve it. Company CEO Elon Musk said that Tesla really intends to make Solar Roof accessible all over the world, with a common addressable market of about 100 million homes worldwide.