Solar panel

There were approximately 98GW of solar power installed globally in 2017, versus 70GW in 2016. That represents 40% volume growth in a single year! Woo, yeah!

The top 10 module suppliers delivered about 57GW of those volumes – 58% of the total. Even though these groups mostly tilt toward utility-scale work, here we’ll talk about some of their residential solar panels to get you up to speed.

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Solaria’s goal is to deliver a good looking solar panel. They also want their panels to have a high efficiency – at a reasonable price, of course.

The 19.4% monoPERC “PowerXT®-350R-PD” (manufacturer’s specification page) is where we see it happen.

Smartly applied all black shingled solar cells combined with a black frame, keep your curbside appeal up and your kilowatt hour production high.

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JA Solar has had their monocrstyalline (mono) passivated emitter rear cell (PERC) panel certified as the highest efficiency model in the market today. The solar panel’s power output was rated at 326.67W, for a panel level efficiency of 19.97%.

JA Solar’s current monoPERC products for sale max out at approximately 300W.

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Solartech Universal is a South Florida solar panel manufacturer that started with a family discussion in the kitchen in 2012. Sometime in 2018 or 2019, if all goes well, they’re going to launch a ~24% efficient, 480-500W glass on glass bifacial heterojunction solar panel for the commercial and utility-scale solar market.

Solartech Universal started shipping in January of 2016 and currently has 80-85MW of annual manufacturing capacity, plus they’re hiring.

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SunPower’s stock jumped 12% on Monday partially because an analyst is highly impressed with the sales opportunity of the P Series solar panel.

The solar panel raises efficiency partially through the use of a weird $9 trick – shingling solar cells – to maximize direct sunlight on silicon. The new panel could be built in the world’s largest capacity solar panel factory.

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LG is pushing out their upgraded “Neon R” and “Neon AC” solar panels to the residential solar market in the USA. The Neon R peaks at 365W and 21.1% efficiency in a 60 cell format. The Neon AC – with an integrated Enphase Microinverter – peaks at 330W and a 19.3% efficiency.

Both panels are available immediately.

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ZeroMassWater has developed a solar panel kit – “Source” – that uses its electricity to draw water from the atmosphere. The kit delivers up to 5 liters (1.3 gallons) of pure water per day in optimal locations. The unit can be installed and integrated into a regular house.

“Our vision is perfect water for every person, in every place” – Cody Friesen, the founder, CEO and MIT PhD.

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Mega Sunergy released a new “multi shingled array module” 315W solar panel design that increases the efficiency of a standard solar panel by up to 17%. The company has changed how they lay out the 60 individual solar cells within the solar panel. Instead of perfectly spacing those 60 out – with small, defined areas between the cells – the company has allowed the solar cell’s borders to overlap each other while increaseing the cell count to 68.

The company expects their new solar cell layout to increase solar panel output 5-17% depending on the original solar cell type. In effect, by lowering the efficiency of the average solar cell they’ve increased the solar panel efficiency.

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High-tech architecture (aka Structural Expressionism) has begun to embrace solar, and it’s the hottest thing under the sun.  One amazing example: Emirates Insolaire’s new custom colored solar panels – Kromatix, a Swiss technology developed by Swissinso. ”We go vertical, we dress the building with a beautiful energy-producing skin.”

The product debuted back in 2015 at the Water, Energy, Technology, and Environment Exhibition (WETEX 2015) and is finding its way into more installations today.

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One of the most futuristic cool solar systems I’ve ever seen is made by SmartFlower. The analogies are built into the structure – like a flower, the machine rises with the sun, opens wide to catch the rays, tracks the sun across the sky and then closes itself away for the evening.

The SmartFlower is really an interesting-looking piece of engineering. Its purpose shines when you talk about protecting your house if the grid goes down. The price is strong for a standard solar house install – but if the commitment of connecting to your roof is an issue for you, the SmartFlower is cool with you seeing other solar panels.

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The newest solar panel technology was on display at Solar Power International in Las Vegas. The biggest attention getters were higher efficiencies and bifacial – but there are other technologies- cut cells, string ribbons, anti-soiling coatings, and solar tiles – that also deserve some time in the limelight.

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Solar panel manufacturer JinkoSolar has broken the record for solar cell efficiency for the most commonly used type of solar cells – 22.04% for a P-type multicrystalline product. Near concurrently, solar research facility Fraunhofer ISE has broken the record for n-type multicrystalline solar cells with an efficiency of 22.3%.

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Your trusty Commercial Solar Guy has sacrificed much to sneak out to the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas, Nevada for Solar power International 2017. The blue skies, colorful drinks and 90°F are really taxing my ability to stay focused on solar panels – but I’ll do my best to tell you about the coolest solar panel technology on the planet.

Bifacial solar panels are being marketed *almost* everywhere. Visiting each of the big players – LG, LONGi, Hanwha Q Cells, Yingli, BYD, Panasonic and others – gave me a bit of unique information from each manufacturer’s perspective.

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Tesla released today all the information to order its new solar roof tiles products – starting with the smooth black glass tiles and the textured glass tiles, as reported earlier today.

Of course, the most important information that people were waiting for is price. CEO Elon Musk first hinted that it would be cheaper than a regular roof after accounting for energy savings, and later said that Tesla’s solar roof could cost less than a regular roof – even before energy production.

Tesla pretty much delivered on both depending on how you look at it.
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SolarCity has its own “Gigafactory” for solar panels going up in Buffalo where it plans to produce at least 1 gigawatt of capacity per year. The plant, which is largely being funded by the state of New York through Gov. Cuomo’s “Buffalo Billion”, had a few setbacks, especially after state funding was put on hold as lobbying connections were investigated, but now the factory is almost ready to start production just as Tesla is about to close its acquisition of SolarCity.
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In a new report released by SolarCity, we are seeing that solar power systems have a usable lifetime of at least 35 years – 40% longer than the market expects. The key finding of the report is that power degradation (annual efficiency loss) of solar panels supplied to SolarCity is as much as 35% lower than for a comparable industry-wide selection of non-SolarCity panels, which are typically expected to last for 25 years. SolarCity feels it is the implementation of a stringent and industry-leading “Total Quality Program” that has driven this.
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Today is the 46th Earth Day. Though from the perspective of the earth, it’s probably closer to its 1.6 trillionth day. Nonetheless, Earth Day is supposed to be an occasion to demonstrate your support for environmental protection.

You can show your support in very simple ways like using less energy or finally recycling those dead batteries that have been piling up in your junk drawer, or you can try to pick up some new habits and initiate yourself to new and greener technologies.
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Recent local news reports in Buffalo reveal that SolarCity’s “Gigafactory” is nearing competition. The exterior has been looking pretty much complete for quite some time now (see picture above), but there’s still work to be done inside the plant, which is why 950 crew members are currently on site to get it online in about 6 months.
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Iron Man director Jon Favreau not only had the chance to get a personal walkthrough of the Model X with Tesla CEO Elon Musk just a few days after the unveiling of the vehicle, but he also arrived at the Star Wars: The Force Awakens premiere with Musk in his Founder series Model X VIN #1.
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Sonnenbatterie is the leader in home energy storage in Europe. The company is expected to represent a serious competitor to ‘Tesla Energy’ in Germany, which the automaker sees as an important market for energy storage due to the popularity of renewable energy in the country. Tesla’s head in Germany, as well as several managers, defected to Sonnenbattarie earlier this summer – hinting at a possible rivalry between the two companies.

At a press conference in Berlin today, Sonnenbatterie announced a new home battery pack, as well as a new solar panel/battery package and everyone want to know how it fares against Tesla’s Powerwall.
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