I read once that amorphous degrades less over time, but that was a book from maybe late nineties. I’m not sure which specific technologies were being compared or of that’s true today.
I know the amorphous stuff exists, but I’ve not really had a chance to mess with it outside the usual applications like “solar calculators.”
I have some amorphous panels for low light charging.
Any way to get IV curves on them in various lighting compared to some silicon panels?
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Maybe. Lemme see what I can rig up.
The REC Alpha panels we’ve just had installed are supposed to be using hybrid cell design part N-type silicon and two amorphous layers. They’re claiming 8% degradation after 25 years…
This headline seems to make this a little bit bigger deal than I feel like it actually is. Mission Solar warrants their panels for 2.5% degradation for the first year and 0.7% for the rest of the 20 year warranty. A LOT of these panels are going to be newer, thus skewing the average degradation higher. Sure, if panels continue to degrade at 1% per year for 50 years they’re not going to worth much by then, and the projections probably shouldn’t be written that optimistically, which is part of what this article is saying. However, I really doubt most investors are investing for 50 years or really expect projections to be 100% accurate. If fact, they’re probably pretty happy that the projections are over 95% accurate. The break even is still going to be what, maybe 7 years, then maintenance and profit for a decade or two after that?