Solar panels are mounted on your roof, while the shingles are integrated into the building itself. Shingles are sized and shaped to blend into the roof visually. The black colour works well for most roof designs. For this reason, many people find PV shingles more aesthetically pleasing than rooftop panels.
Rather than using mounting hardware to install solar shingles on top of your roof like panels, the shingles are part of your roof, replacing traditional asphalt or slate shingles. Since they’re designed to look and function like conventional roofing materials, solar shingles tend to blend in more than panels.
Shingled solar panels should not be confused with solar shingles used in photovoltaic energy applied to construction (see figure 3). As already mentioned, solar shingles are nothing more than shingles made of photovoltaic cells, and these products replace the conventional roof.
Solar shingles are a “new” technology. While solar panels have been around for decades, solar shingles, or “the solar roof,” were just introduced in 2009 by DOW Chemistry Company. One of the recent developments in the industry was Tesla’s introduction of its solar shingles, the Tesla Solar Roof Tiles, in 2016. What Do Solar Shingles Cost?
So for the installation of solar shingles, it is necessary to change the conventional roof because the active solar shingles (which contain silicon solar cells) will also act as structural support for the house and will have the same appearance as the inactive shingles (which do not generate energy).
Solar shingles are more than just a simple addition to your roof; they are a comprehensive roofing solution. Whereas, traditional solar panels are a component of the roof. Both solar panels and shingles are building–integrated photovoltaics (BIPVs). They harness the power of the sun to generate electricity and have the same net metering policies.