This study aims to determine the key factors that influence the application of roof-mounted solar energy harvesting systems in cold regions. Based on a questionnaire survey involving 9 indexes including energy efficiency, performance, cost, power consumption, damage of roof structure, visual pollution, ease of installation, proneness of falling and anti-freezing from 80 interviewees in more than 30 solar equipment communities in Harbin, a city in the cold regions of China, it has been revealed that the high cost (70%), visual pollution (82.5%) and poor anti-freezing (66.25%) are major concerns to residents. As such, the above three emergent problems (>50%) were highly desired to be overcome for the application of solar equipment in cold regions. After exploring the main technical problems and their potential solutions, it is proposed that, in order to rationalize the design of the solar roofs, it would be of necessity to design the roof by optimizing factors through a multi-objective function approach. This integrated design would refer to technology of multi-disciplines involving architectonics, structural engineering, industrial design, et al.