Tesla Applies For Solar Roof Tiles Patent In Europe, Hinting At International Energy Expansion

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Tesla submitted a patent for Solar Roof Tiles Packaging to the European Patent Office recently. The EV automaker's application hints that it could be preparing to distribute and install Solar Roof V3 internationally. 

The patent Tesla filed for Europe was registered under number EP3656053 and titled "Packaging for Solar Roof Tiles." The Abstract of the Patent reads as follows: 

"One embodiment provides a solar roof tile module. The module includes a plurality of solar roof tiles positioned side by side and one or more tile spacers. The tiles are electrically and mechanically coupled to each other. A tile spacer is positioned between two adjacent solar roof tiles, thereby preventing water leakage. A solar roof tile can include a front cover, a back cover, and a plurality of photovoltaic strips positioned between the front and back covers. Each photovoltaic strip includes a first edge busbar located on an edge of a first surface and a second edge busbar located on an opposite edge of a second surface, and the photovoltaic strips are arranged in such a way that the first edge busbar of a photovoltaic strip overlaps with a second edge busbar of an adjacent photovoltaic strip, thereby forming a serial connection among the photovoltaic strips."

The European patent was identical--or at least similar to--the one Tesla filed in the United States under the same title. The Solar Roof tiles patent filed in the US received the publication number US2019/0028055 A1. It was published on January 24, 2019. 

The patent appears to contain all the information necessary to produce and install Tesla's Solar Roof tiles. It includes sections for the Solar Roof's Tile Spacer, Inter-Module Coupling, and Tile Module Fabrication. 

Looking forward to international expansion later this year 😀

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 16, 2020

Based on the information included in the patent and the fact that Tesla submitted an application to the European Patent Office, the EV automaker could be preparing to ship and install Solar Roof V3 internationally. 

Earlier in the year, Elon Musk divulged that Tesla was planning to distribute Solar Roof V3 in late 2020. The patent may be the first sign of Tesla's Solar Roof V3 coming to Europe.  

The only question remaining would be if Tesla will ship the Solar Roof tiles or make them in Giga Berlin. Just recently, news broke that Tesla's factory in Germany could complete its Model Y production plant in less than a year. Construction on another plant could follow soon after.

Giga Berlin maybe Tesla's biggest Gigafactory yet. The sheer size of its land area makes Terafactory a more suitable name for it. As with everything it owns and does, Tesla may want to take advantage of Giga Berlin's space and construct a factory to produce Solar Roof tiles. How soon such a factory could be build remains unclear. So Tesla may start importing Solar Roof tiles before distributing and installing locally-made ones in Europe.