Best Solar Panels (UK) | Are These The Top Five?

so if you're in the market for solar panels and you want some help deciding which ones are going to be best for your home then watching this video is going to tell you everything you need to know about the top five solar panels on the market in the UK [Music] today okay so when you're buying a solar panel there's lots of different things to consider about the suitability for the system on your home now in this video we're going to cover stuff like the Aesthetics of this the actual panel the dimensions of the panel also the power output of the panel and the warranty and we're also going to take a consideration around which panels work best with what type of inverters cuz not all panels are the same out of the box some are designed to work with something called DC Systems and some are designed to work with something called AC systems just before we dive into this top five panel review I just wanted to give you some information about how panels come to their actual technical specification so everything is done on technically a Level Playing Field because all panels are tested under STC so this is standard test conditions and this is where when a manufacturer makes a panel it goes to a lab and it gets tested under some artificial light now this is done using 1,000 watts of light per meter squared on a panel and that's what gives it its peak power so when you see a panel that's 400 watt what it means is if it had 1,000 watt per meter placed on that panel it would be a 400 WT panel what it doesn't mean is that panel just going outside on any day is always going to be 400 watt and something else that they used to test these panels is when they do it the test conditions are at 25° so when you see on the panel data sheet you may see degradation per Celsius and what this means is every degree above 25° the panel will drop in performance and this is more prevalent on black panels so let's dive into this top five so kicking off with number five we've got the qel Q PE Duo black ml hyphen 9 panel now if you watch my videos usually I'll remember all of these stats cuz this is my world and I live and breathe it but it's half 7 in the morning there's so much information to read to you I'm going to have to use this laptop to reference it so who are qel well qel are a German manufacturer they're a German designer but they make their panels in China like everyone else does in the world and they have something called the QP Duo range now this is an all black panel I actually used to fit these panels on PV systems I have a lot of experience with them they're not the most powerful panel on the market so this range the old black range starts around 300 145 Watt and gets up to about 385 Watt and they're a pretty good looking panel so when they're on the roof they look nice and Sleek they're a nice low profile and it's an old black design now the reason this panel is in number five is for a couple of reasons one of them is that Peak power isn't the highest on the market now panels have moved on the other reason is the warranty so cell although they're a great company they only offer a 12E product warranty on their panel they offer a 25e performance warranty but if that panel is broken in year 13 the performance warranty is basically useless so just something to watch out for when you're having a solar system installed and someone's quoting you 25e savings and they're going to put a panel on your roof of a 12year warranty you might want to consider 20 25e maintenance costs performance-wise this panel is just over 20% so it's 20.6% in its efficiency and that's pretty standard for most panels and again going back to that STC test um scenario the panel performs at 0.25% drop every degree over 25° and again this is pretty standard and finally from a price perspective you can buy these panels for about 150 to about £250 depending on whether you're paying the vat or not right now in the UK If you a solar install you don't pay V with installs in number four we've got the LG neon R so LG Electronics obviously a massive brand that you'll all be familiar with and they do make solar panels now there's some rumors that LG are going to be dropping production soon because they're not that price competitive in Market but you can still buy the neon R panel and this panel is available in 350 W variants and right up to 44 40 W so it's you got a nice broad range of panel choice and price-wise they're coming in around 300 a panel so they are more expensive than the Q cell but you're going to be backed by LG and they're going to give you a 25e product and performance warranty and another consideration with warranties is who is backing the warranty if you're going to buy a generic Chinese panel that comes with a 10 a 20 or a 30-year warranty you need to know who is the manufacturer standing behind it and is it Insurance back because if that manufacturer changes closes down you might have theoretically a 15-year warranty but good luck trying to claim on it now also the difference with the LG panels is they're a little bit taller so panels generally come in pretty standard sizes this is an Rea Fusion 2 this is about 1760 mm tall I think it's 1132 mm wide and about 30 mm deep and that's pretty much the standard size for all panels but these LG Neons are Neo's rather are 1880 mm tall so they're going to be a taller panel so if you're stacking them in portrate one above the other you need to make sure they're going to fit on your roof now although this panel is a little bit taller it is also a little bit Slimmer so if again if you've got the space to stack them in portrait and you're limited by the width of your roof maybe these panels will fit and in third place we've got the jeno solar tiger Neo panel and it's the end type version so jeno are a big manufacturering solar generally if you're going to get quoted for a solar system you're probably going to see one of these panels on the quote cuz lots of installers use them they may not use the end type version though we're going to come back to that in a minute now power range wise you can get them between 400 and 440 wat so again you got a nice spread of power choice and the efficiency is starting to climb now so this panel at with number five position the Q cell was 20.6% efficient this is now getting up to 22% efficient so climbing there warranty is still 25 years and I would say that jeno are a pretty solid company so you've got a good chance of them being around in that time if you do need to claim on it decration per de C is. 29 so a little bit higher than another panel and that's because it's an all black design so they perform a little bit less and price-wise you're looking between 250 and about 300s depending on where you buy it from now earlier on I mentioned about end type technology and what does this mean well this is when I was mentioning ear earlier on around matching panels to inverter so n typ technology means it activates at low light so as I previously mentioned if you take a panel outside that's 420 WT it doesn't mean mean it's going to immediately turn on and produce 420 it needs the right conditions what end type panels do is they have a very low operating window so they can turn on at low light applications so if you live in the UK maybe an end tyght panel would be more suitable for you and if you're going to go for an end tyght panel then personally I would only ever pair it with a micro inverter and that's because micro inverters can activate at very low volts or what is is where it's a string inverter or a hybrid inverter that needs lots of power to turn on so you're not really going to make use of the end type technology okay so we're climbing and now we're in number two so we're nearly at the absolute Pinnacle of solar panels but who's got the number two spot well it is the sun power maxion 3 so sunp power are a massive brand in the market they generally Focus around AC system so again using micro Inver in fact you can actually buy some sun power maxion panels that come with a micro inverter bonded to the panel from Factory they're called ACM so AC modules and they're definitely a very premium product Now power range this product comes 370 to 400 W so it's not the most powerful panel on the market cuz it's not really designed to be a very peaky output panel it's designed to sort of work in the mid-range of solar perform performance efficiency we're climbing again we're at 22.6% efficiency and where Max you make a real standing Market is they've got a 40-year product warranty so if you going to have a panel on your roof for 40 years they would warrant it my argument to that would be Beyond sort of 25 30 years you're probably going to change your system what is solar panel technology going to look like in 20 years time compared to today just look at your phone look at 10 years and how they've Advanced and there's rapid advancement going on in this market too they've got a 0.27 heat resistance again above the 25° standard St conditions it's not really that relevant to be honest unless you live in a really hot climate price point quite an expensive panel so you could expect to pay sort of up to about £400 for one of these panels now why isn't this panel in position one well there's two reasons one of them is the intersections on the panel this isn't one of them panels by the way but this looks like one of them the intersections are actually white so aesthetically they don't look great and obviously the only of consideration is the max power is 400 wat so if you do get a nice sunny day you're going to be losing some of that available Power by fitting something like the sun power Maxum and here we are we have arrived at the number one solar panel according to heatable now this is going to be the Rea a Fusion 2 bifacial panel and this is one of those panels here now looking at it aesthetically you might think you don't like the white intersections on this panel but do not be fooled this panel is by facial so don't if you can see that there but when it's on the roof it goes all black but it has some special technology behind this panel and that's by facial technology so you've got receptors on the front but you've also got receptors on the back and these clear glass intersections here they allow light through and that's what gets this panel the extra performance Now power range wise for this panel you can buy this between 400 watt and up to 480 WT however the panels this one here is a 420 this is our standard panel that we sell when you go for the 480 W version it does grow in Dimensions you need to be mindful of can you fit that on your roof efficiency wise we're up to 20 24% efficient so this is about 1.4% more than the sunow maxium warranty 25 years on product and 25 years on performance but crucially this is an Australian company so again claim on that warranty should be pretty straightforward and if that company wasn't there then it's actually Insurance backed by Munich re so the biggest Renewables insurer in the world German insurance company they will stand for2 5 years behind this panel price range they're not the cheapest product on the market they are about 350 to 450 but you do get that back in the efficiency of this panel this is again an N type technology it's been designed for low light applications so if you're in the UK this is going to be the best panel you can get your hands- on if you're in another environment so if you're watching this video and you live in the states or you live in Spain or you live in South Africa you probably don't want to consider this panel because if you get lots of sun all the time you're going to miss some of the efficiency window and this panel has been designed to work with an AC micro inverter so if you're going to fit this panel with a string system or a hybrid system you're not going to unlock all of that performance it needs to go out with a micro inverter personally for me any solar system sold anywhere in the world and especially in the UK should only be going out with micro inverters it's a much safer solution and having high voltage DC Systems on your roof so we hope that was a useful video and giving you an overview of the top five solar panels as rated by heatable now if You' got any comments you disagree or you want to recommend another panel to be reviewed by heatable then leave a comment below in this video and if you're in the market for solar and you want to find out how much it's going to cost to get one of these Rea Fusion 2os installed on your roof with a micro inverter then you you can go to heater bolt. co.uk and we'll give you a quote online and we don't need to send a salesperson around your home you can use our online interactive tool it's free to use and it's dead easy to do

Channel: Heatable

Views: 7,586

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Id: gMAWuI2dB4k

Length: 14min 15sec (855 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 08 2023