Dow plans high profile roll-out for CIGS solar shingles

Dow Chemical plans to bang the marketing drum hard for its solar shingles when they are introduced this coming year under the POWERHOUSE brand. 

What you see may be louder than what you get, meaning there will be opportunity here for you.

Consider that Dow's Midland, Michigan manufacturing facility for the new shingles is still being called a pilot by management. Then consider that, beneath the hype, there's not a lot really new here.

What Dow has done is wrap conventional CIGS panels from Global Solar Energy into a shingle line, an idea Global Solar itself introduced last summer, claiming the resulting shingles are “lightweight and can be applied directly to a roofing surface, requiring no mounting hardware, no roof penetrations, and creating no additional wind load.”

Some analysts are complaining about Dow's planned 10-year pay-out time and $6,000 cost, saying the “sweet spot” is a seven-year pay-out. That's quibbling.

Here are four more reasons to celebrate:

1. Dow is a big brand  and expects to spend heavily on marketing.

2. The product has jumped through all the industry hoops making it easier for other companies to get into the solar shingle market.

3. Dow is going to sell these products through conventional roofing channels, which will educate a generation of roofers on solar technology.

4. While Dow has plugged federal tax credits into its calculations its business plan is not dependent upon them. 

All this spells opportunity for the rest of the industry. There are no real breakthroughs here. CIGS is proven technology. You can compete against it. Having big brands in a new market makes the selling  job easier for everyone else. It legitimizes an opportunity.

And since Dow doesn't plan on scaling to $1 billion in sales until 2015, it's very likely demand will be built ahead of supply, not only on a consumer level but within the roofing channel.