I was wondering if 300 watt solar panels would be coming out soon. John also explains the pros and cons of the two high efficiency panels Sanyo and Sunpower.
This is my 2nd video interview with John Shaw Project Engineer Bella Energy of out of Louisville Colorado.
SolarDave: Are Solar Panels Going To 300 Watts Soon?
John Shaw: Absolutely, any manufacturer can do that right now. You shouldn’t really look at how many watts a panel has – rather how many watts per square foot can be attained. Behind you is a Sanyo 200, if you increase the foot print of that panel by 50% it is a 300 watt panel. The reality is what you need to be looking at to measure the level of progress of the technology is how many watts per square foot.
Instead of thinking will there ever be a 300 watt panel – surely there will be even next year. To get at the point of your question is do you ever think we will be ever to achieve a 300 watt panel in 15 square feet?
And yes, I do. Right now standard efficiency panels are in the ballpark of about 12 watts per square foot, it ranges from 10 to 13. Standard efficiency panels Evergreens, Sharps, Kyocera, Shot (?), Suntech etc.
Keep in mind this is the residential affordable panels, NASA works with panels that are about 30 watts per square foot but you are talking a million bucks a panel.
Then there are high efficiency panels of the ones we know of are SunPower and Sanyo. And Sunpower and Sanyo are approximately 15 watts per square foot. Both are very good products.
Sanyo I believe has a little bit of an edge because they has an amorphous or thin film rap around the silicon cell which allows them to maintain high production in high heat. One more reason and I will tie this in.
The Sanyo’s are shipped with a minus 0 and a plus 5 percent so when you buy a 200 watt Sanyo panel you will get hypothetically in standard test conditions 75 degrees at sea level you will get 200 watts or up to 210 watts.
All other panels including specifically Sunpower are + or – 5%, so you could buy a 210 watt Sunpower cell and it could actually perform at 199 watts where you could buy a 200 watt Sanyo cell it could perform at 210 watts, but no less than 200 watts.
So that and the fact the Sanyo’s will out perform Sunpower apples to apples same azimuth and pitch in high heat because of this amorphous or thin film rap 10% in high heat peak days peak hours – we feel Sanyo is a better panel.
But I have to say that Sanyo’s are more expensive than Sunpower. We can’t touch the Sunpower price, we can touch it with standard efficiency panels – blow it out of the water with standard efficiency panels. But if you are talking about high efficiency panels and high efficiency I think Sanyo is a better panel but the Sunpower is definately a better price.
Update: I got a note from Christy at ST Solar USA that they are selling to models of solar panels at 300 watts.
- ST 300W which is 1730mm L x 1320mm W x 50mm D – a typical 200 watt panel is (1351 X 898 × 60 mm) so it is a lot bigger.
what is the date of the interview with John Shaw of Bella about the 300 watt panels?
I posted it on Aug 25, 2008. Why do you ask?