The first job of any roofing system is to protect a building and its occupants and operations from the weather; anything else is gravy. The balance of benefits quickly shifts, however, when the gravy in question is energy savings.

By October 2007, researchers at NIST's Building and Fire Research Laboratory will wrap up a 15-month study of actual energy production of roofing systems using photovoltaic technology.

The study aims to help researchers more accurately predict a system's annual production for any given geographical location, building orientation, and photovoltaic cell technology. The test facility is configured to accommodate three commercial photovoltaic roofing products and six residential systems.

Presumably because of the heightened interest in the energy-saving promise of photovoltaic technology, researchers say they might report intermediate results of their tests before the study ends

Though researchers make no mention of measuring the high-tech products' ability to actually protect a facility, it stands to reason that building managers and owners also will need to make sure that photovoltaic technology in roofing systems can handle the rugged conditions that all roofs inevitably face.

Focusing too much on the technology's promise of saving energy without fully investigating its long-term ability to protect facilities is the recipe for a maintenance disaster.