Are you thinking about installing solar panels in your house? If yes, then you must check various types of solar panels and compare their properties and qualities.

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In this blog, you will learn about three types of solar panels.

Monocrystalline Solar Panels

Monocyrstalline solar panels are efficient. Though they are more expensive types of silicon solar panels. They’re suited for a wide range of uses, some examples are roofs and houses, DIY solar projects, and vehicles that have limited mounting space. They are most of the time, but portable and flexible the monocrystalline solar panels are also available.

Each cell in monocrystalline solar panel is a thin wafer of a single crystal of nearly pure silicon. This wafer is coated with boron and phosphorus. Thus, it has positively and negatively charged sides, typically called a PN junction.

The wafers are painted with silver wires so that the electricity flows once sunlight knocks loose electrons from the silicon atoms.

These panels are black in color so that they can uniformly absorb more sunlight and refract less.

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Polycrystalline Solar Panels

Polycrystalline solar panels are the best when you have a limited budget or have a lot of mounting space. These panels are less efficient than comparable monocrystalline solar panels. Therefore, their size has to be bigger to produce the same amount of power. They produce a lower price per watt. Like monocrystalline panels, they also have a wide range of uses, from residential solar installations to ground-mounted solar arrays.

The PV cells in these panels are called poly solar panels, and they are made of fragments of silicon that are melted together to form wafers made of several smaller crystals. The panels have a fragmented appearance.

The cells scatter the light to produce a blue color. The anti-reflective coating adds to the blue shade.

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Thin-Film Solar Panels

Thin-film solar panels are quite thin. Their thinness makes them useful for producing curved or irregular mounting surfaces. They are not very popularly used, though.

As the name suggests, thin-film panels are made from films of photovoltaic materials instead of crystals. They can be made of different elements. The common elements are amorphous silicon, cadmium telluride, copper indium gallium selenide, and gallium arsenide. They can be made of organic materials as well.

Popular types of thin film solar panels are Cadmium telluride (CdTe), Amorphous silicon (a-Si), Copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS), and Organic photovoltaics (OPV).  It can be chosen based on individual need.

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Also Read

Quality Solar Panels: The Best Type and Brands