South Africans making a big mistake when buying solar panels

Snipped by moderators due to copyright infringement as well as being a thinly-veiled advertisement for a Powerforumstore competitor.

19 hours ago, Hein Zehrt said:

South Africans making a big mistake when buying solar panels

 

It would be great if Mr Becker could indicated where to find the criteria mentioned in the specs. 

Does this advice imply everybody not having PERC panels must remove them for the latest offering? 

Name the so called "inferior" panels in the market,
I have no doubt that there are bad and better panels, but I regard this as a marketing video of a product that no doubt was engineered to overcome some of the shortcomings of the mainstream industry,
But just with all products, there are cost considerations and not everyone can afford to live in a millionaire's estate or finance that illusive AMG63.
 
 

This article is so wishy-washy. Sounds like a butt-hurt supplier who's sitting with stock. 

Well I'm sure there are SOME cheapos out there in the field. I'm also sure that the new panels one can get today are superior to those available five years ago. But apart from this, he's dealing in generalisations and the article can be summarised as "buy from my company".

I just don't appreciate these crude appeals to my emotions. If the product is that great, just post a link to the specification sheet and give the price.

My panels have been doing fine for almost 9 years now, and if they last 12-15 years having paid for themselves years before, I'm okay with that.

I don't realistically expect any manufacturer to honour a warranty 12 years later because so much can happen in that time. Heck, the maker of my panels isn't even in business any longer, and my installer has retired and shut his business.

So my takeaway from the article was more the fact that majority of panels in SA I believe are single glass panels and not the double glass panels.

I believe even my Jinko 620W N-Type TOPCon panels are single glass panels (that white film on the rear).

 

I have not seen any double glass / glass-on-glass panels except for bi-facial panels?

How long these laminated panels will last, who knows - wait and see but I do not expect them to actually last 20+ years

Some of Kyocera's earliest installs - including some of their smaller residential installations - are still up and running decades later; they were over 30 years old at the time of publication:

https://americas.kyocera.com/press-releases/press-releases_201503232744.htm

I don't think Kyocera manufacturers many residential glass-on-glass panels.

While I'm sure the quality of manufacturing has gone down since the 80's, I'd be surprised if most on-brand panels lasted less than 20 years in practice.

 

As for the OP video instilling fear of panels catching fire: this sounds like straight-up FUD. It reminds me of when everyone claimed that the Vodacom roof-fire was due to their PV installation when in fact solar was ruled out completely as the cause.

Quote

Becker told MyBroadband that South Africans were effectively buying solar panel “duds”.

 

Edited January 10, 20242 yr by Yellow Measure

@Yellow Measure

Where is the "Shi* happens" pic?

5 minutes ago, Virwat said:

@Yellow Measure

Where is the "Shi* happens" pic?

😀 Have to leave something for other members to post.