Which solar panels are right for me?

Choosing the right solar panels for your Brisbane home shouldn’t be so hard.

I’ve spent the last 13 years installing solar panels around Brisbane. In that time we have:

• Tested 30 different solar panels on the roof of our Brisbane warehouse.
• Visited 5 different solar panel factories around the world.
• Written 10 different articles on solar panel research

And now, we have settled on two solar panel brands for our Brisbane solar panel installations. Sunpower and Q CELLS.

Choose quality

At MC Electrical, we install quality through and through. This is our starting point. Solar panels are a long term investment, not a quick fix consumable. We’re installing solar panel systems to last 25 years. It’s economically and environmentally irresponsible to expect less. So how did we settle on Q CELLS and Sunpower solar panels?

Ask anyone in the Brisbane Solar Panel industry which solar panels are the best on the market. Most professionals will tell you Sunpower and LG. For a long time, both panels had held their position as the industry’s best solar panels, until recently when LG withdrew from the solar market, leaving Sunpower the hands down winner for premium solar panels world wide, but especially in Brisbane.

Ask again which are the next best solar panels, the majority would say Q CELLS and REC.

Q CELLS Solar Panels Brisbane

 I wasn’t always a fan of Q CELLS.

In 2017, we had REC solar panels as part of our Brisbane solar panel offering. I visited the REC factory in Singapore and was impressed with their manufacturing process. However, it didn’t take long until I began to have concerns about their supply channels and their limited presence in Australia. Then after continual feedback from our installers, I became increasingly concerned about the REC build quality. I started looking around and my reading steered me to Q CELLS.

Q CELLS FACTORY VISIT

Q CELLS assured me they were different. Instead of just talking about it, they put their money where their mouth was and invited myself and my operations manager Ryan to their factory in South Korea.

Fair to say, Ryan and I were blown away with the level of automation and the advanced technology behind their South Korean solar panel factory.

When we arrived back in Brisbane, we began looking deeper into Q CELLS. Particularly their Solar Panel research and development team. I sent Ben (our Solar designers/estimator) to meet the Q CELLS Engineers in Germany.

Feedback from our installers and warehouse manager kept flooding in saying Q CELLS was the best built panel they have ever seen. I began to understand that Q CELLS is really in a league of their own. Q CELLS Solar panels don’t just hold a premium place in the Brisbane Solar panel market, they are the leaders in solar panel research and development.

The three main issues with solar panels technology in the last 10 years were discovered and solved by QCELLS. Their German engineers documented and solved them before anyone else on the market even knew they were an issue.

• LID: Light-induced degradation
• PID: Potential induced degradation
• And most recently LETID

Q CELLS can be therefore defined as industry leading, not industry following.

But the acronym that you’ll be more interested in is LCOE

What is LCOE?

Q CELLS is all about LCOE or the Levelized Cost Of Energy.

The Levelized Cost Of Energy is a fancy industry term meaning “bang for buck”. The bang, in this scenario, means they need to perform well for 25 years. The buck means you are not paying 20 per cent more for an extra 3 per cent production.

So Q CELLS chose the affordable “P-Type” silicone to make their solar panel cells. The majority of entry-level panels use P-Type silicone because of its affordability. However, P-Type silicone has two main disadvantages over the more expensive N-Type silicone: efficiency and degradation. Instead of switching for the more expensive N-Type silicone, Q CELLS solved the P-Type problem.

• Q CELLS has the most efficient P-Type silicone solar panels in the world. This means you have higher wattage (330W) on a smaller framed panel using affordable PType technology.
• Q CELLS discovered, solved, and minimised the degradation issues surrounding P-Type before anybody else. This means you can rest assured that your panels will not degrade as quickly as other panels.

The above combined factors make Q CELLS the panel with the best mix of quality price. Their commitment to R&D, their industry leading approach to design, their superior production facility, all at an affordable end price point, made the choice easy.

Our second solar panel offering is Sunpower: the worlds best solar panel.

Sunpower Solar Panels Brisbane

If you are the type of Brisbane homeowner that just wants the best solar panels money can buy, then Sunpower Maxeon panels are the obvious choice.

Which Sunpower solar panel?

I can’t overstate the fact that Sunpower P-Series panels are not the Same as Maxeon panels. I’ve been to both the Sunpower Maxeon factory in Mexico and the Sunpower P Series factory in China. As a result of this visit, and other reasons, we no longer and will never again sell Sunpower P Series panels.

However, when it comes to Sunpower Maxeon, nothing else comes close.

Sunpower has a 35-year history of making solar panels different. The integrated back contact and fully copper backed cell brings a level of efficiency durability and performance that is unparalleled in the solar industry. The most adventurous solar pioneers use SunPower’s Maxeon cell to set world records on land air and sea.

What do Sunpower Maxeon panels do differently?

• They use N-Type silicone (also used by LG and some REC panels).
• They put the “busbars” on the back of the cell, which allows more sunlight to hit the cell (also done by some LG panels).
• The “Maxeon” solar cell technology uses a copper base, which makes the cell significantly more durable than any other solar cell. This is unique to Sunpower and the reason Sunpower Maxeon solar cells are used by likes of NASA, Solar Powered Yachts, the Solar Impulse Plane, and the World Solar Car Challenge.
• The Maxeon copper backing also draws heat away from the front of the cell, allowing the cell to run cooler and more efficiently.

What this means for you

• If you want to get the most power possible on your roof space, Sunpower is the obvious choice. Maxeon 3 panels are massive 400 watts. However, their more affordable Maxeon 2 solar panels are still a huge 350W and 360w.
• If your Brisbane home is your “forever home,” then you can rest assured that the Maxeon cell will not fracture or crack in hail storms, or whatever else our harsh Brisbane climate throws at them.
• You’ll pay a little more upfront, but you’ll get that back in performance. Sunpower produces more power for longer thanks to their industry-leading 0.25 per cent degradation per year.

Choosing panels is hard work. It took 11 years of that hard work to form my opinion on the best solar panels we could offer our clients.

If you are looking for a mix of quality and price, you’ll find that in Q CELLS.

If you are looking for the best panel on earth, Sunpower is the solar panel for your Brisbane home.

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