The top USA solar installer, which expanded into manufacturing through its acquisition of Silevo a year ago, will make the panels at a major solar panel factory it is building in Buffalo, New York.
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While other solar technologies have hit higher efficiency levels, these units are not designed for residential rooftop applications.
The panels achieved an efficiency level of 22.04 as measured by the Renewable Energy Test Center, a third party certification organization.
Solar energy expert John Farrell, who serves as Director of the Democratic Energy Program for The Institute for Local Self-Reliance told Mashable that typical solar panel efficiency is, at 18%-to-22%, actually in the same range as SolarCity’s new panel.
SolarCity’s 1 GW solar panel manufacturing facility in Buffalo, N.Y., is expected to open in early 2017. SunPower Corp, a USA panel manufacturer that has long made the most efficient panels in the industry, is now producing modules with 21.5 percent efficiency on a mass scale. SolarCity expects to bring down costs by 15 to 20 cents per watt.
SolarCity’s efficiency leap, however, may not be that big when compared to the current state of the art. The improved efficiency also will reduce other costs associated with rooftop solar systems by requiring less mounting equipment and less wiring.
The company said that once the main line is running, they will build enough of them to equip up to 200,000 homes per year. SolarCity’s $750 million Buffalo facility will ultimately have ten times that capacity. Rive said that helps performance hold up better against high outdoor temperatures. When its complete, the company says the factory will produce up to 10,000 solar panels a day.
The company recently announced an initiative to lower the cost of sun power for lower-income families.
Despite the encouraging results from the pilot plant, manufacturing any new solar technology is a huge risk; scaling up the production processes quickly and doing so while maintaining the efficiencies of the modules and without increasing costs could be hard.
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“We expect it will allow us to offer solar electricity at a discount to utility power in more places”, Bass said.
