Mono vs Poly vs Flexible Solar Panel + Series vs Parallel Wiring

hello everybody Michael here would do it justice and welcome to the next video in our DIY solar power series as you see me discuss in the last two videos I've talked about questions you need to consider if you're asking yourself is solar right for me I've also talked about how to properly sized your solar power system and in the next four videos I'm going to discuss the four major components of the solar power system and today I'm starting with the solar panels as far as what I'm gonna discuss when it comes to solar panels I'm going to talk about the difference between monocrystalline and polycrystalline which are the tried-and-true hard framed solar panels I'm also going to talk about the difference between those traditional panels and the newer flexible thin film panels and the last thing I'm going to talk about is how to wire your solar panels whether you should wire them in series and parallel and some advantages and disadvantages of each of those options so let's jump right into monocrystalline versus polycrystalline the major differences between these panels are going to be the durability and looks the efficiency and the size as well as the cost per watt when it comes to durability both of these panels are extremely durable they have an aluminum frame with a tempered glass top to cover all of the solar cells that produce the energy manufacturers generally cover these panels for about 25 years which is actually quite a long time when it comes to product warranties now when it comes to whether these panels are extremely resistant to all types of weather including high winds and even medium sized hail the general rule of thumb is if the weather can damage your roof it can damage your panel okay now let's talk about the efficiency and size of each of these panels monocrystalline panels are made with a higher grade of silicone so generally they are slightly more efficient than the polycrystalline panels now what I'm talking about efficiency I'm talking about the percentage of energy that is converted into electricity so when it comes to monocrystalline panels on the high end it's about 20% and when it comes to polycrystalline panels on the high end it's about 17% or because monocrystalline panels are slightly more efficient that means that their footprint is just slightly smaller than a polycrystalline panel so if you have a 150 watt monocrystalline panel compared to a 150 watt polycrystalline panel the monocrystalline panel is just going to be slightly smaller in dimensions won't take up quite as much room as that polycrystalline panel now I'm going to discuss the cost per watt for each of these panels and in general they are around the same but because monocrystalline panels are produced with a higher grade of silicon that in turn means the manufacturing process is slightly more expensive which then makes the consumer have to pay a little bit more for those products in general three years ago when we bought our monocrystalline panels it was really good if you could get a panel for about $8 per watt but as time has gone on and as demand for solar has increased those costs have gone down so you should easily be able to find both a mono crystalline and a polycrystalline a really high efficiency panel for about Oh 82 90 cents per watt now I'm going to discuss the differences between those traditional panels that I just discussed and the newer flexible thin film solar panels and again I'm going to talk about the durability and looks the efficiency and the size and the cost per watt so when it comes to durability the tempered glass old-school panels are as I said really really durable but when it comes to the flexible panels they are not as durable there are issues like cupping scratches micro scratches as well as tears that can happen to the solar cells because they don't have the tempered glass protection on the top of them another thing that they don't have is a 25 year manufacturer's warranty generally they come with about a 10 year warranty because the manufacturers don't anticipate them lasting you that long now I could go into a bunch of different issues with these flexible panels when it comes to durability but gone with the winds have created a really well put together video that discuss all of these issues and I'm gonna link that video in the video description below so go check that out and that's going to give you a really good idea how durable these flexible panels are okay now let's talk about the efficiency and the size when it comes to efficiency these flexible panels are not as efficient as the old-school panels so on a high end or the average for these flexible panels is about 13% efficiency and that is not very good when you compare it to the sixteen to seventeen percent of the polycrystalline and the almost 20% of the mono crystalline so again the difference in efficiency is going to make you have to buy more panels or each panel is going to be larger in size it's gonna have a bigger footprint bigger surface area to produce the same amount of energy so now let's talk about the size between the two panels the traditional panels are significantly bulkier and heavier than the flexible panels obviously that's one of the major advantages that the flexible panels have over the traditional ones and when it comes to it just to give you an example our 150 watt panels that we have on our RV are 25 pounds and they are about three to four inches thick to give you a comparison you can get a thin film flexible panel a 150 watt panel that might be eight pounds and about an half an inch thick so that's a significant difference so if portability is a huge factor in your decision definitely go with flexible over the hard panels now I'm going to talk about the cost differences between the traditional panels and the flexible panels and as you know the traditional panels will run you anywhere from 80 to 90 cents per watt for a decent quality panel and I did a quick search online to check the prices of the flexible panels and on eBay I found a 150 watt panel for about $190 that will run you about a dollar 30 per watt which is a little bit more expensive not too bad but a pretty significant amount more than the traditional panels now since we're talking about efficiency and cost of the flexible panels I should talk about an anomaly in all of this and that's so bein brand flexible panels they just came out with the most efficient solar panels ever made and they are 22 and 1/2 percent efficient they our flexible panels so that's really an amazing accomplishment but the only thing is is they're gonna run you an arm and a leg they cost about $10 per watt that's over ten times the amount for any other solar panel that you can look for and yeah if you have healthy pocketbooks definitely go for that option but when it comes to just a standard flexible and traditional panels traditional panels went out when it comes to costs all right guys now we're gonna jump into the final topic and that has to do with wiring solar panels in series and/or parallel now this topic can be extremely confusing and my goal with this little section is to try to make it as clear and easy to understand as possible Before we jump into it I want to refresh our minds on the relationship between watts volts and amps as you may remember from the previous video we discussed how watts is equal to volts times amps this equation is going to be very important as we go through our scenarios today so when I Ellis traits how to wire in both series in parallel I'm gonna use our personal system as a reference to illustrate those concepts so we have 4 150 watt panels for a total of a 600 watt solar array so we know we have 150 watt panels at 17.5 volts and that gives us about 8.6 amps of current on each of those panels now the first thing I'm going to talk about is wiring them in series so when you're thinking about wiring your panels in series you need to think of the panels as being tied into a string you're taking each one of these 150 watt panels and you are marrying them or combining them into a singular 600 watt panel and this is in an electrical sense not in a physical sense obviously they're going to remain four separate panels but in an electrical sense you're going to be wiring them into a single 600 watt panel now let me talk about what changes with the solar array when you do that so when you're wiring all of these panels to gather you're going to take the positive line on one panel wire it to the negative line on another take that positive line wire it to the next native line and so on and so forth and so what you're left with is like I said a singular 600 watt panel that has a single negative wire coming out of it and a single positive wire coming out of it what changes when you do this process is the voltage of your system what you need to remember is when you wire things in series the only thing that changes with the system is the voltage so when you're wiring for 150 watt 17.5 Volt panels together you're gonna take that 17.5 volts and multiply that by 4 which will give you 70 volts so now you have a 600 watt panel that is 70 volts and if you reference that equation that we just talked about Watts equals volts times amps you have your watts which is 600 you have your bolts which is 70 but you don't have your amps so to solve that equation very easily you just take the Watts 600 divided by 70 which is your volts and that gives you eight point six amps so you'll notice when wiring it in series the only thing that changes is your voltage you have a 600 watt system at 70 volts and 8.6 amps okay now that series is done let's talk about wiring them in parallel so when you're wiring the solar panels in parallel it is almost the exact opposite it actually is the exact opposite each of those panels each of those 150 watt panels are going to remain separate panels they're going to be individual panels producing individual amounts of energy at 17.5 volts the only thing that's going to change when you wire all of these in parallel meaning a positive and negative line comes out of one a positive negative line comes out of the next one and so on and so forth none of them are connected together the only thing that changes is the amps of your solar array so you still have a 600 watt solar array at 17.5 and again let's go back to our Watts equals volts times amps equation and if we need to find the amps for that system wired in parallel you take the 600 Watts and you divide that by 17.5 volts and that gives you thirty-four point four amps now that thirty-four point four is as you might have guessed eight point six amps from each panel multiplied by four because we have four panels so eight point six times four gives you thirty four point four amps so the only thing that changes when you're wiring a solar system in parallel is the amps you're quadrupling the amps okay now that we understand how to wire in both series and parallel what you need to do is figure out what the advantages and disadvantages are between those now I'm gonna tell you the three major advantages and disadvantages between those two types of wiring configurations and it has to do with wire sizing shading issues and the charge controller size as far as wire sizing is concerned if you don't know already wire size is strictly correlated with the amount of amps running through that wire so each wire is rated for a specific amount of amps or current flowing through it so the smaller the amount of amps the smaller the size of wires so you'll remember that our 600 watt panels wired in series was 70 volts at 8.6 amps and that our 600 watt panels wired in parallel was 17.5 volts in 34.4 amps now the ones wired in series are going to be much smaller wires coming off those solar panels than the ones wired in parallel now when it comes to shading that's where the advantages and disadvantages switch the wiring it in parallel is a major advantage when it comes to shading and I'll explain to you why because remember how earlier when I was talking about wiring them in series you're marrying them all together so it's a singular unit all those panels are working together to produce that energy now when one of those solar panels is shaded the entire unit goes down and this has to do with the fact that this is how solar panels work if you have a single 150 watt solar panel and that solar panel is shaded that panel stops producing energy the only reason the entire system goes down when you're wired in series is because you've wired them all together so each one depends on the other now the reason it's the advantage when it comes to wiring them in parallel is because all of those panels are individual panels so if one panel gets shaded you're only down 25% of your solar array so three of your four panels can still produce energy the last thing I'm going to talk about is the size of the charge controller if you remember when I was talking about how to properly size your system there was that solar calculator well when you think about the amperage coming from the solar panels when you wire it in series and the amperage coming from the solar panels when you wire them in parallel it's a major difference there are much more amps coming from the solar panels wired in parallel versus the solar panels wired in series so the requirements for your charge controller are going to be much higher the higher the amps are so a solar array wired in parallel will need a much bigger charge controller than a solar array wired in series okay guys I hope that wasn't that confusing and not to muddy the waters anymore but there is a third option that you can do when wiring in series like I said and/or parallel you could wire them in series and parallel meaning if we took two 150 watt panels and another two 150 watt panels and we wired those together in series you would have two 300 watt 24 Volt panels because we know that wiring the mid series doubles the voltage and then you would take both of those 300 watt 24 Volt panels and you would wire them down in parallel and as you know with wiring them in parallel we're going to double our amperage so the specs for that system would be 600 watts at 35 volts and 17.2 amps my brain is fried okay guys that is a third option but it kind of blends the best of both worlds for both series and parallel and obviously I just used this one particular illustration as an example to explain these concepts to you of course you can change the size of your solar array you can change the number of panels you can change all of that so remember when I said solar was virtually limitless this is exactly what I mean it is very confusing but once you understand all the concepts you'll realize how things kind of intertwine together and it'll start to make a lot more sense to you so if this video doesn't make sense to you right now I encourage you to go out and do more research so that you can come back and watch this video and really digest what I'm saying in it by the way guys if you're curious how I personally wired our solar panels I will be discussing this in a future video when I take you guys on a complete walkthrough of our personal 600 watt system on our RV and I will discuss all of the thoughts and considerations that went into place when I was going to wire my solar panels anyway guys I hope you enjoyed this video if you did and potentially learn something along the way hit that like button down below it lets both Jenni and I as well as YouTube know that we're producing quality content and if you have any questions on this topic hit me up in the comments below I'm gonna do my best to answer as many questions as I can and if you guys know the answers please do me a favor and help answer those questions in the in the comments section below and as always guys I will see you on the next video [Music]

Channel: Duet Justus

Views: 813,662

Rating: 4.9234104 out of 5

Keywords: solar panel, solar panels, monocrystalline vs polycrystalline solar panels, mono vs poly, series vs parallel, mono vs poly solar panels, series vs parallel wiring, series vs parallel solar panel wiring, solar panel wiring, monocrystalline, polycrystalline, flexible solar panel, solar, solar power, solar for beginners, diy solar, off grid solar, rv solar, rv solar systems, off grid solar power, solar power system, solar power series, solar how to, duet justus

Id: kHSL_6sG5ZE

Length: 17min 32sec (1052 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 16 2017