About Solar Panels

 What is a Solar Panel?

The solar panel is a plate of silicon cells, silicon is a semiconductor material which is having a unique property of forming junction, it is having a kind of gap between two electronically charged areas in the same material. It produces energy when enough energy of light strikes on this material (more on this later). These silicon cells are placed over the acrylic sheet with connecting wires soldered over it. These cells are protected by thick tempered glass over them. The thickness of this tempered glass & acrylic sheet provides more strength to the panel. When sunlight strikes these panels, silicon cells starts creating a potential difference(voltage) over its top layer & bottom layer. Now, this potential difference can be used to run your appliances or charge your battery bank.

Types of solar panels available in the market:-

1. Polycrystalline Solar Panels:- These are the cheaper ones, 'poly' means many so it refers that multiple silicon crystals are used in the cells. It restricts the efficiency of these solar panels to around 16-17%, these are already widely used because of lesser costing. 

2. Monocrystalline Solar Panels:- These are costly ones as compared to the polycrystalline, here 'mono' means single i.e., pure silicon cell is used in these solar panels. Pure means more efficiency, they can attain up to 20% efficiency, however, it may not sound a big number but if we see it as a long time utility then it plays a major role in power production.

3. Mono-Perc Solar Panels:- These panels are similar to monocrystalline solar panels but with better efficiency. This technology picked up the trend in 2019, these panels can have efficiency up to 21%. In the world of electrical these small numbers plays a major role.


You can understand the difference between the mono & poly type by appearance, the black one with diamond cuts is the mono whereas the blue one with square shape is polytype. We can also illustrate the difference between them by an example of glass. The polycrystalline cells look like having a kind of mixed structure of several broken cells whereas monocrystalline appears to be a smooth black colour cell.

These are the types of solar panels traditionally available in the market however various other technologies are also about to be voluntarily available for use like perovskite, thin-film, bifacial & many others. But these three are having heavily occupied the market share of solar panels.

Every percentage of efficiency matters in the case of solar panels, so one has to keep in mind before making any decision. Generally, they come with a warranty period of 25 years so here is the question that matters the most. Are they really gonna last 25 years with this efficiency?

The answer is No, here you have to be careful with the warranty scheme because it comes in written that around 10% efficiency depreciation will occur every year. This depreciation efficiency is calculated from the 100% efficiency of solar panel working that means 0.1% of 20% will be depreciated on mono.

This may sound complicated but this is the real technical issue related to solar panels. But if you have a proper comparison with your utility it will pay you back in 6-7 years. 

It is a kind of investment which will pay you back by generating power in a maximum of 7 years & afterwards whatever you use will be your profit. These are some truly positive aspects associated with the solar panels.

Location: India

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