What Solar Panels are Best?

This can be a bit overwhelming at first as there are literally hundreds of brands out there. But you can quickly narrow your selection down by considering a few key topics such as: the warranty period most suitable for your circumstances (e.g. how long you may reside in your property), the panel efficiency, if the manufacturer has a ‘tier 1’ rating and whether the panel manufacturer has local market support in Australia.

Warranty periods can range from 10-12 years for a budget panel up to 40 years for a high-quality premium panel like SunPower.

The efficiency of the panels correlates as to how much of the sun’s energy that the panel can convert to electricity. The vast majority of quality panels on the market are now between 19-21% efficient i.e. they can convert between 19% and 21% of the sun’s energy to electrical energy.

Bloomberg New Energy Finance (‘BNEF’) has developed a tiering system for solar panels to create a transparent differentiation between the hundreds of manufacturers on the market. With Tier 1 being the best and Tier 3 the bottom.

Unfortunately, this list isn’t available unless you pay a fee to Bloomberg! However, sites like Solar Analytica present a freely available list of Tier 1 panel brands that should correspond closely to the BNEF list.

The team from Solar Quotes have also done a great job summarising the best solar panel manufacturers. As to have the team from Clean Energy Reviews.

Takeaway – once you have a quote for a solar system compare the panels to Solar Analytica, Solar Quotes and Clean Energy Reviews, or other more well-respected sources, to ensure what the salesperson is telling you reflects reality.