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How much electricity does a solar panel generate per day? What’s a tier 1 panel?

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Having the world’s highest average solar radiation per square meter, Australia is considered the most potential and viable solar energy source whether you’re a home or a commercial entity looking to install panels on your premises.

Choosing the right solar system can be very confusing as there’s a lot of misleading jargon and buzzwords – especially with the solar panels! You’ll also have to ensure they are compatible with your entire solar system – you’ve then got to see how they interact with each other before trying to calculate their output, which can be challenging as well.

It is impossible to tell you with certainty that your solar panel produces this much power – as this varies from brand to brand and panel to panel. There’s also something else you need to consider in addition to choosing a panel – the quality of manufacturer, generally ranked via solar panel tiers.

How much electricity does a solar panel generate per day? Photo by Ryan Searle on Unsplash

How are solar panels tiered?

Solar panels are categorized into three tiers, with tier 1 as the best. This can affect output depending on the brand and number of watts per panel (especially over longer periods of time). Your location will also be important – obviously someone in Australia is going to get better value out of a solar installation than someone in Glasgow (only 50 days of sunshine a year there…).

Let’s discuss the concept of a Tier 1 solar panel. This is a bit of a misnomer – in the sense that Tier 1 or Bank-ability solar panels come from companies which have been in the industry for many years and are financially capable of dealing with your warranty issues, repairing issues or any problems you encounter over the ~10 years you will use their product. That’s my convoluted way of saying Tier 1 denotes the ranking of the manufacturer itself, not the solar panel. It is the manufacturer who will back up your product in the case of potential future defective panels or installations. Banks or investors may not want to put their money in your solar power project (commercial solar or residential) unless they’re satisfied your manufacturers are likely to be around if and when your solar systems malfunction. How many successful projects has the company undertaken? How long have they been around? The answers to these questions will impact which tier the manufacturer is.

It is important to keep in mind that Tier 2 or Tier 3 solar panels are not always a poor choice per se – these manufacturers can also offer high quality panels, it’s just riskier to rely on them because the company is recently established, and you may not be sure how long they’ll be in the industry. Maybe their manufacturing standards aren’t as robust as some of the bigger brands – as always, you get what you pay for. It’s a matter of weighing up the pros and cons and ensuring your solar investment is making money within your risk tolerance. And if you’re going for a bigger installation, it’s generally worth going for a quality manufacturer and a tier 1 panel. Preferably more than one, but you get the point.

Who chooses solar panel tiers?

This tier-based ranking (remember, it’s per manufacturer, not per panel) is decided by Bloomberg New Energy Finance – a research organization. There are other ‘tier’ lists out there which are better off avoided as it can be very confusing – the Bloomberg list has been well trusted for a long time.

If you’re interested in more detail in how a company’s tier is decided, the official BloombergNEF site has a useful PDF you can download here.

Just remember, there’s a lot of marketing involved in solar, so be sure to ask as many questions as you can to the salesperson. Grab a copy of the spec sheet for the panels they’re showing you and check it out yourself. Do your due diligence and you can even end up with a cashflow positive solar installation.

How much electricity does a solar panel generate per day?

Your location and the amount of watts in the solar panel will also impact the amount of power your panels are able to generate. solar panels will be in terms of making the most of the solar power.

Your inverter also plays an important role in regulating and maximising generation of solar power. A top-notch quality solar inverter determines how well your solar output is distributed, applicable once the DC power turns into AC.

In Australia you can generally bank on 10-12 hours of sunlight during summer. For simplicity’s sake, let’s call average sunlight 10 hours for our calculation, and the capacity of the solar panel we’re measuring is 300 watts:

Total Watts = Average time of sunlight x Solar Panels watts x Number of Panels

= 10 x 300 x 1

= 3000 Watts Hour or 30KWH Daily

But we also need to consider solar panel efficiency. A solar panel has a maximum of 15–22% efficiency, due to the Shockley-Queisser limit silicon panels will never reach greater than 1/3 efficiency.

Let’s calculate total watts from a single panel, daily, with 20% efficiency:

3000 Watts x 20% = 600 Watt Hours or 0.66KWH per day.

If you want to measure solar output you have numerous options depending on which inverter you’ve chosen. Most of them offer a web-based interface so you can keep an eye on how much money you’re saving – you could even pipe the solar statistics to a Raspberry Pi, or automate reports showing how much you’ve saved. Solar power in Australia has never been cheaper – we’re seeing a meteoric rise in commercial solar installations nationwide, whether you’re Ikea or an SME – it’s time to go green and choose solar power for your business.

Which manufacturers offer tier 1 solar panels in 2021?

As per review.solar for Q1 2021:

  • LONGi
  • Jinko
  • JA Solar
  • Trina Solar
  • Canadian Solar
  • Risen
  • QCells
  • Suntech
  • Talesun
  • First Solar
  • ZNShine
  • Seraphim
  • Eging
  • Haitai New Energy
  • Astronergy
  • Jolywood
  • SunPower/ Maxeon
  • Jinergy
  • VSUN Solar
  • Jetion
  • LG Electronics
  • BYD
  • AE Solar
  • Phono Solar
  • Waaree
  • HT-SAAE
  • REC Group
  • URE
  • ET Solar
  • Renesola
  • Adani
  • Boviet
  • Vikram
  • Ulica
  • Leapton
  • Hansol
  • Kyocera
  • S-Energy
  • Recom
  • Shinsung
  • Heliene
  • Sharp
  • Swelect
  • Photowatt

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Trump imposes Solar Tariff on Panel Imports

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President Donald Trump has imposed a solar tariff – on solar panel imports, which is expected to have myriad repercussions for local manufacturers and their ability to compete against competitors in China and South Korea. Will this have an impact on solar panel technology, and what will it mean for local manufacturers?

Trump’s Solar Tariff – What Now?

An ostensible slap in the face to the renewable energy, Trump’s idea of raising import tariffs by up to 30% may have a few benefits, at least for USA based companies. 

Donald Trump Imposes USA Solar Tariff
Donald Trump Imposes USA Solar Tariff (source: @realDonaldTrump via Twitter)

First Solar Inc., USA based panel maker saw their shares jump by almost 10% in after-hours trading. Shares of U.S. home appliance manufacturer Whirlpool jumped also 5 percent on Tuesday on the back of the news, as washing machines have also seen a tariff imposed on them.  

According to Time magazine, however, the move will stifle a $28 billion industry not only overseas, but the raised costs of solar panels will also harm the American solar industry. The Solar Energy Industries Association has projected tens of thousands of job losses in a sector that currently employs 260,000 people, America wide. These tariffs are on the back of Trump’s administration pulling out of the international Paris climate agreement, and rolling back regulations on power plant emissions. 

According to a statement made by President Trump on Monday, the first 2.5 gigawatts of imported solar cells will be exempt from the tariffs. Four years of tariffs will then start at 30 percent in the first year and gradually drop to 15 percent.

“Developers may have to walk away from their projects,” Hugh Bromley, a New York-based analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance, said in an interview before Trump’s decision. “Some rooftop solar companies may have to pull out” of some states.

CNBC reported that Credit Suisse analyst Susan Maklari told her clients that Trump’s decision wasn’t all that surprising.

“All those producing in the US will now face a similar cost structure, creating a more level playing field,” wrote Maklari. “Based on filings by LG and Samsung, they have a combined roughly 33 percent share in the U.S. suggesting 3 million washers are brought in annually. That said, both have commenced construction of U.S.-based capacity, which is expected to come on line over the next 12-18 months. As such, we expect this decision to become less impactful in time.”

Only time will tell what impact this has on the renewable energy industry as a whole, but these sort of protectionist regulations are rarely a step in the right direction. Watch this space…

 

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Hazelwood Shutdown – The implications for Australian Power Prices

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After over 50 years of service, the Hazelwood shutdown will finally be completed today . Hazelwood, the Engie and Mitsui owned power plant operated at 1600 megawatts and was a brown (‘dirty’ coal) fired plant, is located in Victoria and supplied almost 25% of the state’s energy (and about 5% nationwide).

This has led to a steady surge in energy futures for the April-June quarter (over 300% in the past year) as per data from the AEMO (Australian Energy Market Operator)

Melbourne analyst for UBS, Nik Burns, wrote in a report this week that the energy market is “…struggling to absorb the potential impact of the closure on future electricity prices” which is leading to “increased volatility”. As the graph below shows Australia’s already struggling power and energy market have reacted with steadily increasing panic to the situation:

Hazelwood Shutdown
Hazelwood Shutdown (source: smh.com.au)

 

Federal Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg has previously said that Victoria could import energy from NSW and Tasmania (coal-fired and hydro generated, respectively) – and according to SMH, and Australia’s electricity grid operator over the next two years there is a prediction of 72 days of high demand conditions/possible power supply shortfalls if next summer is even close to as hot as predicted. As previously highlighted, the plant supplied a massive 25% of Victoria’s power and the 72 days of potential power “reserve shortfall” – which doesn’t necessarily mean blackouts, but certainly shows how reliant the state (along with SA who have myriad similar woes) will be on imported power over the coming months following the Hazelwood shutdown.

However, investigating the situation further it may not be as bad as that sounds – these predictions are based on ‘extreme demand scenarios’ – which refers to the assumption of ‘once in a decade’ electricity usage. A scenario like this is possible for days and even weeks over the next couple of years, but 72 days seems extreme at best. Dylan McConnell from the University of Melbourne said “If there’s a 45-degree day, or three 45-degree days in a row, or a generator fails you could have demand at that level and get a shortfall in Victoria, but it’s not going to happen 72 times in two years,”.  Grattan Institute energy program director Tony Wood agreed that the electricity supply was unlikely to be interrupted in summer 2018/19.

“The most likely outcome at the moment is that we will get through this,” Mr Wood said.

Regardless, Australia’s transition to a clean energy remains fraught with uncertainty (apart from the seemingly inexorable price hikes). With the $2billion Snowy Mountain expansion “Snowy Hydro 2.0” still years away (the feasibility study should be completed by the end of the year) we face a few interesting years as we try to balance reaching our 2030 renewable goals and keep energy on while minimising blackouts and load shedding across the country.

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