25/02/2020
🥊Mono -vs- Poly Panels 🥊
If you are planning to install your first ever solar PV system on your rooftop, you will probably encounter monocrystalline and polycrystalline as your options for PV panels. Mono and poly panels serve same purpose of harnessing energy from the sun and converting it to usable electricity. Both can be a great choice for your home as they additionally use silicon, which is an abundant and durable material. However, there are key points between the two forms of technology that are essential before settling your final say on what type of panel to purchase. Other articles may say that one is better than the other but why they still both exist?
Answering the question of which the better panel is, lies on each household’s preference and need. Thus, one household can say that mono panels are the perfect modules and one might choose poly technology as the better option instead. To shed some light on this, let’s break down the typical considerations in order to be sure which one is appropriate to install. You might want to have a scorecard for both types of panel while giving each important point a grade weight if you opt to.
**Required System Capacity**
The search starts with the needed system capacity for your home. In order for you to pick the appropriate solar modules, consider the needed electricity output that is required to power the whole household. By and large, each Australian home typically utilizes 20kWh of electricity every day which equates to a 5kW system. Just a simple tip to measure the actual electricity your home is using, you can effortlessly check it from your past electric bills and simply compute for your home’s daily usage of power. From the underlying thought of knowing daily average consumption of electricity, it should now dictate the number of panels you have to install whether they are mono or poly modules. As an example, you will be needing at least nineteen (19) Jinko 275W Poly or eighteen (18) Astronergy 285w Mono panels in order to power a 5kW-system household.
**Available Rooftop Space and Panels’ Efficiency**
By this time, you need to know that monocrystalline solar modules provide the highest efficiency rate of converting sun’s energy into electricity since they are made of high-purity silicon. They perform at 15% to 20% efficiency rate based on top panel brands available in the market. On the other hand, polycrystalline panels produce power at efficiency rate of 13% to 16% at the very least. This might sound to be a done deal of using mono panels instead of poly but believe us when we say that choosing a panel is more than its efficiency. This is now the time that you need to gauge the rooftop space where the panels are to be installed. Ideally, limited rooftop space may require you to have mono panels as they are more space-efficient while poly panels is preferably for houses with larger rooftop space.
**Cost of the System**
As you determine the available rooftop space, another factor that comes in is the cost of the panels. Since the technology used in making mono solar cells are more advanced than a poly, the cost is significantly higher. The process and technology used in making poly panels are simple – making it costs less. With poly’s simple manufacturing process, they produce less waste in production which result in minimal ecological footprint to the environment. If you are working on a specific amount of budget, you might want to request an actual quotation from solar installers and retailers. But to give you an insight into the current market trend, price of mono panel ranges from $120 to $196 while poly panels price ranges from $104 to $150. Prices may vary depending on solar panel brand and time of purchase.
**Appearance of Solar Panels**
Another point that you might want to keep in mind on your journey of looking for the best panels is how they are going to appear on your household rooftop. Monocrystalline panels have rounded edges which have been cut during production to optimize performance while polycrystalline modules look perfectly rectangular so you can easily identify them by their appearance. In terms of colour, mono cells are mostly dark and poly module have a bluish finish. If this is something you are not particular with, you can give equal points for this specific point.
