Solar Panel variables no longer a concern

Solar panels aim to collect the sun's energy and convert it into power which we store in batteries. It's a game where every percentage matters over the 12 hours of daylight and the 365 days of a year. As always the solar philosophy, size of the array, positioning angle, wiring configuration, distance and collector or conversion, and its storage can give a great variance in total power stored throughout a year.

The same considerations can be made at every turn in the system design and needless to say each component during its design, development through to final assembled component. With panels, there are now also options on frame colour, backing colour, J-Box connectors in portrait or landscape on top of the technology benefits each brand markets as they jostle for marketing one-up-man-ship with each other.

Let's leave that in some respects to the marketers of this world and focus on the facts; the product needs to be of known quality, proven materials and design and is readily available. Importantly you might consider such constrains as physical size because if you ever need to replace a module you'll want to know the physical dimension wasn't a one-off speciality. Therefore product design and road-mapping are important from the manufacturer.

A world-renowned manufacturer of panels has a lot more to lose as a brand than a factory which will OEM any brand onto their panels as that doesn't affect the factory in any way if something goes wrong. They are also more conscious of the long term outcome, performance and visual appearance of their old product that's still in service. For that reason, they use a higher grade of material with proven longevity.

These as with any other 20 things we could list is why we stick with the big brands. With Australia on our doorstep, we can rely on their real-world field testing to ensure anything we use in NZ is up to standard and we can also take advantage of the large factories having Australian offices with the region being one of the most popular in the world for installation. This means we can benefit from their quantity purchasing programs. Just another reason why we don't sell cheap unknown brands.

With half cells, semi shading allowances, allow power to be generated while overcast. MPPT extends controller efficiencies in converting the energy and battery cycle-life improvements give a solution that one could almost say is generational. It's no longer a case of wait for things to get better or the cost to come down. The time is now, the technology will only improve and further enhance your existing system and not hinder its expansion.