Solar Panels & Green Roofs

In the last decade, solar panel installations in North America were more of the hot topic roof-wise than green roofs. People are curious these days, as the climate continues to warm up, what’s the truth between solar panels and green roofs? Solar panels appear to be heavier and more likely to over-heat the roof under sunny conditions, and vendors haven’t been consistent across the industry enough in areas like installation and maintenance.

Regardless, solar panels can be beneficial in both the short and long term for building owners in many ways, not to mention energy cost savings. While the need for green roofs outweighs that of the need for solar panels we believe, bringing solar panels and green roofs (and walls) together is our recommendation almost always - as there are many ways to install the two together, or even before or after the other has already been installed.

As we typically do, we’ve shared our simplified review of this topic we recently did. We believe in the benefits of green roofs (and walls) over that of the benefits of solar panels comparatively in all categories - from the visual impact on the communities near a building to even the cost saving in energy.

Green roof + Solar panel Gallery

In these examples we’ve included below, some appear to have installed the solar panels and greenery as part of the same project, and the others are more likely to have been retrofitted - either an older solar panel installation with a new green roof around it, or an existing green roof with solar panels installed wherever’s best on the greenery. We also have a standard Gallery of Green Roof and Green Wall examples on this page of our website HERE.