Which Solar Panels To Use [Video]

SolarDave: Which solar panels do you like to use and why?

Dan Yechout: Namaste Solar primarily installs from three manufacturers; SunPower, Sharp and Kyocera. Your Sunpower panel and your Sanyo are you two high efficiency high end panels, so must power per square foot but also the most cost per watt as well. Those panels are very popular when you have very limited roof space and you want to maximize how much power you get on your roof.

Sunpower also has the nice added benefit of an all black ascetic that you don’t get with any other panels and that is really popular with homeowners.

Then your Sharp and Kyocera panels are your low efficiency but lower cost panels so those can really make sense when you have a lot of roof space in order to fit the solar system.

SolarDave: So which one has the most bank for the buck? Sharp or the Kyocera?

Dan Yechout: They are actually quite comparable, Sharp has their own racking system now, which is called SRS aestecally is nice because black frame system which sits low to the roof but sometimes you do not get the flexiblity with that system because of the low profile and because it is a frame you need to have some margin of roof space around the system to work so you end up losing a little bit of real estate with that system that you can’t go over attic vents and those kinds of things.

Where as with a panel like Kyocera can be used with standard 3rd party mounting systems such as Unirack or ProSolar and those tend to be pretty flexible and can often clear some roof obstructions and go right to the ridge of the roof or gutter of the roof.