The REOSE Solar Panel House is a home that is completely built with steel, structurally insulated solar panels (SSISP). The REOSE SSISP are unique because they are the only structural building material that collects, transfers, stores and converts solar photovoltaic and solar thermal energy flows into useful, and mindful work.

Traditional building designs reject the summer’s sun, spring rains and fall’s gusty winds with cool roofs, rainwater runoff plans and wind diverting schemes, and yet homeowners secretly yearn for those very same energy flows during different times of the year. What the REOSE solar panel House does is flip this design strategy around and asks how we can best design a building to absorb more solar energy, more wind flows, and more rainwater runoff. The end result is a Sustainable Home, a living, breathing, and thinking environmental system, a House, that is designed to last for generations.

The interlocking solar panels are designed to be stacked on top of each other, with system interconnections being made at the doors, windows, eaves and corners of the home, school, or office building during installation. The SSISP are strong and can withstand 200 MPH winds, 8.2 earthquakes RS, and qualify for a 40% reduction in homeowner’s insurance because they are so safe. The REOSE Solar Panel comes in XXL sizes with 2, 4 & 6ft heights x 6-12” widths, and from 2 to 50 ft long.

Due to its unique structural flexibility, arrays of SSISP’s can span great divides, with free roof spans of 50ft or more under normal residential loading. Architectural framing with the REOSE solar panel is simple, with only minor modifications required of standard 2x6” building plans.

The standard 1250 sqft SSISP House will also generate enough clean energy to support two adults and three children continuously for 25 years (~1200kW-hr/month). Replacing the SSISP’s thin film PV panel is as simple as pealing and sticking another PVL over the top of the existing laminate. The SSISP House uses smart meter technology to empower owners to sell/net-metered timely electricity production, which also qualifies for both renewable energy (RE) and energy efficiency (EE) incentives.

Normally buildings are framed and then the construction trades are invited to install the electrical, mechanical and plumbing sub-systems. Using the REOSE solar panel eliminates this timely and labor intensive construction step altogether. Making future floor-plan changes is simple as installing the electrical, potable water or HVAC outlet at the desired wall, floor or roofing location, as each solar panel has both supply and return headers for all of these critical habitation needs in every surface.

The principal construction advantage of the SSISP House is that it is so fast and easy to build. The SSISP House is delivered to any Google street-view address in standard shipping containers as a turn-key, foundation ready installation kit (SSISP foundation is an option). The single container kit contains everything the builder needs to build a 1250 sqft (25 x50 ft) House (~$100K).