What is the best type of solar panel for your home ?

Obviously any perspective owner of a solar electricity system wants to know what the best solar panels to buy for their home or business is. There are two things to look at when answering this question.  

1. You need to look at what solar cell technology is best for your situation; and
2. What brand of panels is the best.

  The first question is a technical question based on physics. The second question is a commercial decision based on many more subjective judgment calls and can leave even seasoned industry professionals in disagreement.

What is the best type of solar cells

The main types of Solar panels are:

Cystalline Solar panels - these can either be mono-crystalline solar panels or poly-crystalline panels. These types of solar panels account for most of the supply on the market today.

Amorphous Silicon - this is a non-crystalline form a silicon that had been able to offer some advantages because it can be sprayed onto a backing meaning it can be used to make flexible modules and also it can be made using very small amounts of silicon to save cost in the manufacturing process. To date typically these types of cells have had a lower efficiency than crystalline wafer silicon cells but who knows what the future may hold. The growth of amorphous silicon solar panels has stalled in the last two years or so. Originally the upside of amorphous solar panels was lower cost when crystalline silicon rose to astronomical prices in 2008 and 2009. However, down side to these panels was always their larger negative power tolerance when compared to crystalline silicon solar panels.

CIGS - this stands for another group of elements (copper, indium, gallium and solenium) that have semiconductor properties and can be used to make solar panels. Most of the panels being sold in the USA today are either monocrystalline or poly crystalline panels. As such people often want to know whether they are better or with a monocrystalline or a poly crystalline panel. Click here for our discussion on this point. As for the other question see our discussion link below on how to evaluate one brand of panel over another