Chinese solar panels

[edy252]

Hi all,

It feels good to post again to this great discussion board!

I'm planning to power my home using solar panels because:

1. My country's (Lebanon - Middle East) power grid is very unreliable. We might have the power on for 10 hours or less in 24 hours.
2. My country has around 300 sunny days a year.
3. My house gets a lot of sunshine especially during the summer time (around 11 hours) when the power's problem is at peak.
4. I'm just so interested in renewable energy!

The thing is, I contacted several solar panel manufacturers in China through alibaba.com (Great site) and all were very interested in supplying me with solar panels even if I'm only buying 3 to 5 KW of solar panels.

The price ranges from 0.58 $ / watt to 0.85 $ / watt. All accept sending me one sample and one is even offering handling the shipping fees with DHL!

All of these companies' offers come with a 25-years performance warranty and all say that their company has several quality certificates! Most of them attached the certificates with their offer.

My question are :

1. How do I know which solar panel is good and which is not? That's China after all, their products range from the very best to the worst possible.
2. How do I test a solar panel if they send the samples? As much as I know, the output power of the panel will decrease after several years. I can't just wait for years to test the output!

The thing is, I don't want to spend thousands of dollars for solar panels that will be useless after few months.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Edy

[phil b]

EDY,
I'd stick with the major brands if you feel uncomfortable about the panel output. I haven't heard of any panels on this forum that didn't have at least the labeled output.

 Or, do like I did, buy laminates and make your own. Test as many panels as possible on the same day, at approximately the same hour. Anyway, that's my solution.

Ether way, you will need a good mppt charge controller and inverter for 3-5 kW output.

[Erik the Red]

You might want to do some research on German solar panel companies instead, which seem to have a better reputation for having reliable products. 

[DamonHD]

Note: many 'German' panels are made in China.  I think that all the panels (ploy and TF) that I had installed with German badges on in my last two installed were Chinese made.

Rgds

Damon

[tecker]

There's something to be said about DIY solar panels . Purchase a small amount of the materials you'll need and just get good at the process.
 You need the membrane or encapsulation . After you get it down It's satisfying and you'll have knowledge to share in a prime solar environment
 I'm making 1 volt panels with some heat sinking and the data is good  I have a rack that is made for the 1 volt panels and I found 1 farad 2.5 volt for $3 apiece to integrate into the buss  2 panels wide and 22 long .  I'm not tracking yet but the mech is built into the rack . I've  not seen any failures but the cost of replacement is manageable .   I use a product called Sylgard expensive but so far so good .

[Mary B]

Commercial panels have gotten so cheap that they beat trying to make your own.

[dnix71]

Damon The Germans are in China big making electronics. But they carefully oversee the process. I have German/Chinese panels and a German/Chinese inverter. I called the inverter maker before buying and asked about the country of origin and was told the Chinese can't be beat for production price, but they have to supervise them to insure quality.

Works for me.

[DamonHD]

Yes dnix, that combo would work for me too...

Rgds

Damon

[tecker]

There is so much wrong with solar panel design I could go on and on . Expansion contraction ,internal conductance is not accounted for, forget maintaining a large array . If a panel goes bad you may be all summer before you know . I have yet to get rated output from any of the three brands I've used  . There's room for improvment big time .

[dbcollen]

Tecker
You will almost never get the panels rating, even with MPPT. The panels are rated at Standard Test Conditions (STC), STC = 1000 W/M2 irradiance, 25oC module temperature, AM 1.5 spectrum. What you will usually get is the rating at Nominal Operating Cell Temperature Conditions (NOCT) NOCT = 800 W/M2 irradiance, 20oC ambient temperature, AM 1.5 spectrum.  NOCT is usually about 72% of STC.

[David Hufft]

*seconds dbcollen* 

[ChrisOlson]

All those in favor "Aye" dbcollen.

That's usually what I get - around 75-80% of rated power on a really nice clear day.  On a really nice day when the sun pops out from behind a cloud they will make over rated power for a brief time.  On a perfect day in the winter with the panels really cold I've seen rated power for 2-3 hours sometimes.

There seem to be only a few that aren't made in China anymore.  Sharp panels have been made in Japan, and as far as I know they are still building them there.  Schott Solar (German) builds at least some of their panels in the US.  Helios Solar Works (the brand of panels I have) are 100% USA made in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  SolTech panels are 100% USA made in Texas.  There are probably a few others, but they are few and far between.

Otherwise even Canadian Solar - Made in China.  I bought a new Honda generator recently - Made in China.  It seems to me that the big names who have their stuff built in China either own the factory or have very strict quality control guidelines that whoever they hire to built it must follow.  Like somebody else said you can get the very best of quality and the very worst coming from China.

When it comes to buying non-brand name panels from China, to my way of thinking a 25 year performance warranty means nothing.  Anybody can slap that on.  But the chances of them still being in business in 20 years, or even 10 years, to honor that warranty are very, very slim.
--
Chris

[tecker]

I,m sure the main reason for lower proformace is expansion . Internal conduction  under load has to increase internal heating . These problems get worse with a couple of years service . The over seas testing of production panels remain over seas . The coating that bonds the front of each cell is  basically silver nitrate and have averaged solar performance . My point is no company is trying to improve on proformace .That to me means that the return on investments are inflated enough to give them no reason improve .  I can't think of another device in this price range that has improved any less than solar panels .  I think that several charging devices on the market today are rooted to DIY development and solar panels could improve with input from those forums .

[gsw999]

I bought 200 solar cells from China ( 300$ including shipping) and built my own panel ( 4 cells x 6 ) on a chemtrail free day with no clouds it was turning out 13.4 volts at about 5.7 amps , when I laid a mylar sheet in front of the panel the amps went up to 7.6 , has anyone else tried using mylar to increase the amps, funnily enough the voltage stayed exactly the same, I have a video of it and will upload it if i get some spare time.

When work allows I will put together another panel and see what happens , i have bought some extra clear resin and plan to set some panels in it , just to see how it affects output.

[admin]

We've had fine success with Trina and Yingli from China.
But guess what? The reason these companies are successful in the US is because of their dealer/customer support services here. US distrubutors won't sell them without a great track record in  module reliability, tech support, customer service, and warranty service.

The price difference between USA modules from proven companies here, and Chinese ones of the same reputation, is about 15 cents per watt from our US distributors.

So Edy -- THAT's what to look at first. It's not a bargain if it breaks and they won't send a new one, and also pay the installer at least some pittance to swap it out.

Will they still be in business when it breaks? Now that's an entirely different question!

admin

[XeonPony]

I bought 200 solar cells from China ( 300$ including shipping) and built my own panel ( 4 cells x 6 ) on a chemtrail free day with no clouds it was turning out 13.4 volts at about 5.7 amps , when I laid a mylar sheet in front of the panel the amps went up to 7.6 , has anyone else tried using mylar to increase the amps, funnily enough the voltage stayed exactly the same, I have a video of it and will upload it if i get some spare time.

When work allows I will put together another panel and see what happens , i have bought some extra clear resin and plan to set some panels in it , just to see how it affects output.

Amps go up, heat goes up, thermal cycling goes up, life time goes down. There is ALL WAYS a trade off, me I go for life time so I stay away from concentrators! but hey have a blast.

[Erik the Red]

Note: many 'German' panels are made in China.  I think that all the panels (ploy and TF) that I had installed with German badges on in my last two installed were Chinese made.

Rgds

Damon

Good stuff, Damon, thank you.

Is there any kind of database or website, where the ownerships of these companies, German, Chinese, American, Australian, and so on, can be diagrammed?

[Erik the Red]

Commercial panels have gotten so cheap that they beat trying to make your own.

Mary Alana that is good information.  Some folks will rather think on other than cost.

I think it's a function of temperament.  Some folks take enormous pride in what they can do with tools, others, with sums.

If I had the time for a hobby, I might want to build my own, just for the exercise.  Such has not been the case of late.

[Erik the Red]

I bought 200 solar cells from China ( 300$ including shipping) and built my own panel ( 4 cells x 6 ) on a chemtrail free day with no clouds it was turning out 13.4 volts at about 5.7 amps , when I laid a mylar sheet in front of the panel the amps went up to 7.6 , has anyone else tried using mylar to increase the amps, funnily enough the voltage stayed exactly the same, I have a video of it and will upload it if i get some spare time.

When work allows I will put together another panel and see what happens , i have bought some extra clear resin and plan to set some panels in it , just to see how it affects output.

Amps go up, heat goes up, thermal cycling goes up, life time goes down. There is ALL WAYS a trade off, me I go for life time so I stay away from concentrators! but hey have a blast.

XeonPony

Well I suppose it's intuitive/conjectural where the best economy will sit, unless measurements were taken, over the life of both types of system, in many environments and conditions.

It were a complex equation, it seems to me, to measure lesser short-term performance in one system against the cost of replacement in another...

...and, of course, the user's time to arrange thins must be taken into account.

[Mary B]

The reliability factor is there too, how good are your building skills to have a panel that will last 20 years+?

Commercial panels have gotten so cheap that they beat trying to make your own.

Mary Alana that is good information.  Some folks will rather think on other than cost.

I think it's a function of temperament.  Some folks take enormous pride in what they can do with tools, others, with sums.

If I had the time for a hobby, I might want to build my own, just for the exercise.  Such has not been the case of late.

[fabricator]

There is also the consideration of array size, if you want 1kW or 5kW that's one thing, but 10kW or 15kW? That would be a full time job for about a year, and at $0.89 a watt for UL approved Chinese cells, you would really have to enjoy it. http://www.sunelec.com/