Cost Of Thin Film Vs Crystalline Solar Panels

Advantages of pv thin film.

Cost of thin film vs crystalline solar panels.

Thin film solar panels are completely different from monocrystalline and polycrystalline solar panels. A roof with both mono and thin film solar panels. Thin film technologies reduce the amount of active material in a cell. Abundant and efficient crystalline silicon solar cells have been around since the 1950s but thin film solar cells are the new kids set to become the medium of choice.

Mass production for pv thin films is much cheaper and that makes the manufacturing cost lower than crystalline based solar cells. Market has seen a demand growth for pv thin film from 2002 2015 more than 60 annual rate. Since silicon solar panels only use one pane of glass thin film panels are approximately twice as heavy as crystalline silicon panels although they have a smaller ecological impact determined from life cycle analysis. While thin film technology has an advantage over crystalline pv modules in terms of pricing crystalline silicon modules are rapidly closing the price gap as prices continue to decline.

If you ve got a moderately sized house then it might be a good idea to go for monocrystalline solar panels instead which will provide you with 4x the power of thin film panels while taking up the same amount of space. They are solid black without the normal silicon cell outlines you see on the face of a crystalline solar panel. Most sandwich active material between two panes of glass. However thin film technology lags behind crystalline silicon technology in terms of efficiency and performance.

Like conventional solar panels amorphous solar panels are made from silicon but they are constructed in a different way. One technology you may have heard of is thin film solar which includes panels made from a variety of materials that tend to be more lightweight and flexibe than typical silicon panels. Usually thin film solar panels are lightweight and flexible making them easy to install. Crystalline monocrystalline and polycrystalline solar modules dominate the solar industry with thin film modules accounting for 5 of global solar installations across the globe.