The simple answer is not really. All a solar photovoltaic customer really should care about is can enough solar panels be installed in the area available to fully power the home or business completely for the entire year. Less efficient panels cost less and only disadvantage is it will require more panels to produce the same amount of power as more efficient panels, but if one has the space who cares. As long as the panel manufacture has an industry standard warranty of at least 25 years and a predicted degradation of not more that 18% in 25 years then don’t spend your money of higher efficiency. However, if you have limited space to reach your goals of producing enough power then. Going up to higher efficiency panels to meet your goals in a finite area makes good sense.
Want to learn more… read on?
It must be pointed out that efficiency of solar panels only comes into play at the panel level when the manufacture flash tests the panel to determine what wattage the newly built item will produce when bathed in sun light, (Photons). Once the panel is given a data plate with a wattage rating and multiple panels are assembled into a group called an array the efficiency is baked into the design and it no longer really comes into play.
Example: (Assumes both system face south at a 20 degree angle to the sun)
- If I build a solar array using 20 – 300 watt panels, the total array wattage is 6000 watts or 6.0 kW.
- On another home we build a solar array using 15 – 400 watt high efficient panels, for a total array wattage of 6000 watts or 6.0 kW.
- Since both systems are rated at 6 kW, face south at 20 degrees then they will both always produce the same power, one just takes up less space.
