Captain Sola

The Defender Of Truth In Advertising For The American Solar Consumer.

He May Look Silly In His Blue Mask, Cape And Tights, But This Little Fellow's Myth Busting, Buying Tips Can Save You A Ton Of Cash When Buying A Solar System For Your Home Or Business.

Myth: Higher efficiency means more power.

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Reality: Higher efficiency provides no more appreciable power and can cost up to twice as much. In many cases a higher efficiency solar panel will yield a smaller rebate, poorer PTC real world performance and can take up to twice as long to begin seeing a return on your investment.

A lot of solar dealers talk about efficiency as if though it's the Holy Grail of the solar industry. Higher efficiency may have some merit in certain circumstances, but for most consumers, higher efficiency means absolutely nothing. This is especially true if you're paying more money for higher efficiency solar panels.

When it comes to solar power, a watt is a watt is a watt. Expose a high efficiency 220 watt solar panel to full sunlight and all you're going to get 220 watts. Expose a low efficiency 220 watt solar panel to full sunlight and you'll get the same 220 watts.

Efficiency has absolutely no bearing on the amount of power that a solar panel will produce when exposed to full sunlight. Unfortunately many solar salespeople use terms like "high efficiency" or even "highest efficiency" as if though the consumer will receive more power when compared to a lower efficiency solar system with the same power rating.

In reality, one of the only benefits to buying higher efficiency solar panels is that a higher efficiency solar panel will have a smaller footprint on your roof than a lower efficiency solar panel. And in many cases that can means a savings of only a few square feet.

So if you have a small roof space that cannot accommodate the number of panels that are needed to meet your energy production needs then higher efficiency solar panels might be warranted, but at what price ?

Remember, the higher the price you pay for efficiency the longer it will take to achieve a return on your investment.

In fact if you check the California Energy Commission's Go Solar California website, Click Here For The State Of California's Solar Statistics Webpage , you'll find that many dealers that sell higher efficiency solar panels not only Charge more than double the available cost per watt but some of the solar panels that claim to offer the highest efficiencies actually offer a poorer per watt PTC rating which will result in not only a smaller per watt rebate but also poorer per watt PTC performance.

So when it comes to real world performance, a higher per watt PTC rating and a better negative tolerance rating far outweigh efficiency.

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