Solar Panel Companies - History and Tier Level

[ol' boy]

Just been reading about some Solar Panel products (flexible, foldable and fixed)
And came across this website, which seems useful and interesting when choosing the Manufacturer our of China



It seems rather old information, as it was printed in 2014.
Which is probably light years in the Solar game, but might be interesting to some.

I found it amazing the amount of Tier 1 Solar manufactures that have wound up in financial difficulty.
All seem to have expanded so fast, got huge contracts and sales (many being leading Australian panel suppliers), then fail in the scaling process.
Some very interesting stories from the boom of the Solar Industry.

As a side note, with our ever increasing energy costs, isn't it about time Solar Panel weren't just stuck on a roof, but the entire roof made of solar panels as part of the building process?
I guess water handling will always be the issue and panel redundancy/failure.

[gordon_s1942]

I have never understood why there are so many variants in the shape of a house roof with its Hips and humps and odd angles when a simple sloping or 'V' shape type does the same job.
40 years ago I took out a sloping section of roof because it had a three way connection valley that collected debris and in more than a moderate rain, backed up and overflowed inside so I made it a simple V from front to back.
Now I have 2 sides facing East and West, 14M long by 6 m wide which I have NOT had the sense to use as Solar collectors.

Regretably oceanboy's ideas of a using Solar panels as roofing s unlikely to ever happen unless there is a major standardization of roofs, it would be brilliant however for places like supermarkets and barns etc that have large lightly sloping roofs.

[ol' boy]

Regretably oceanboy's ideas of a using Solar panels as roofing s unlikely to ever happen unless there is a major standardization of roofs, it would be brilliant however for places like supermarkets and barns etc that have large lightly sloping roofs.

Products are already available gordon, solar tiles, etc
So far it just isn't financial nor do they work as efficient as traditional panels.
Our own Stratco had a product in 2015.

Now after a bit more reading, i see retro fitting panels is the obvious way forward
Due to redundancy and failure issues

The next big market in Solar with be "Upgrades" panel swap outs, Inverter swap outs.
And Micro Inverters (1 per panel)