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Tip !
While shopping
for solar on the Internet check to see if the websites you
visit are running "Pay Per Click" ads for other solar
panel dealers
on their websites.
Why would a
legitimate business advertise their competitors on their own
website? Are these websites really "ad mills" which make money
for the website owners when you click on these ads or are they
real solar dealers ?
AT SOLATRON
SOLAR IS NOT JUST WHAT WE DO. SOLAR IS ALL WE DO.

Busy, Busy Busy
Are you getting
nothing but busy signals and answering machines from all of the
other solar panel dealers when trying to place your order ? Many dealers on the Internet
are not on the phone dealing with customers like they claim on
their answering machines, they're simply not there.
And if they're not there to even
take your order, where do you think they'll be when you have a
question or a problem ?
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The Latest Information On Residential Solar Panels
Solar
Panels With Mono
Crystalline Silicon Solar Cells
In 1954 while experimenting
with semiconductors, Bell Laboratories developed the first
silicon solar cell doped with specific impurities that would
begin the evolution of what would become today's high efficiency
solar technology. Today Mono crystalline or single
crystalline solar cells are produced primarily by the
Czochralski (Cz) process. The large diameter single crystal
ingots that are created from this process are cut into thin
wafers using thin wire saws. Conductive energy collection grids
are silkscreened onto the surface of these wafers and a
functional solar cell is produced. Solar panels that utilize
single crystalline solar cells offer among the highest
efficiencies available on today's commercial market.
Solar
Panels That Utilize Poly
Crystalline Silicon Solar Cells
Solar cells that are
created from polycrystalline or (multi crystalline) technology
are cut from a silicon boule that has been casted from molten
silicon and allowed to cool. The rate that the silicon is
allowed to cool effects the size of the crystals that are
formed. The multi crystalline solar cell is grown from lower
grade silicon material which forms multifaceted
crystals that grows in multiple
directions. Conventional multi crystalline solar cells
typically have a slightly lower efficiency resulting in larger
individual cells and thus typically a slightly larger module.
All of this has changed with the advent of the new silicon
nitride multi crystalline cells which are rated as high or even
higher efficiency than similarly sized mono crystalline cells.
Most solar panels that are made today use polycrystalline solar
cells.
Ribbon Silicon Solar Panels
A process which cost less
than other processes is known as "Ribbon Growth". Silicon is
formed directly into thin wafers which avoid the expensive
process of sawing silicon from a solid silicon boule. One such
method is known as "Edge defined film fed growth" starts with
two crystal seeds. A thin layer of silicon is formed as the
seeds are pulled from a molten vat of silicon which produces a
continuous ribbon of silicon. Solar panels that that use this
technology are effective at saving
material but the quality of the material produced is not as high
as the Czochralski (Cz) process.
Cell efficiency may also be reduced. Solar panels that use
this type of technology are not as common as more
traditional higher efficiency technologies.
Amorphous
Silicon Solar Panels (Thin Film)
Unlike crystalline
silicon whose atoms are arranged in a very orderly fashion,
the atoms in amorphous or thin film solar panels are not
arranged in any specific pattern and in fact contain many
structural and bonding defects. Amorphous solar panels are
made by utilizing a vapor deposition process not unlike
spraying the silicon which deposits a microscopic thin layer
of doped silicon onto a glass substrate. Although thin film
solar panels are less costly to manufacture than mono or
poly crystalline technology they do suffer from several
drawbacks, among them are a much lower efficiency. While
mono and poly crystalline solar technologies typically
produce power in the 12 to 15 percent efficiency range, thin
film technology's efficiency range from 7 to 9 percent.
Another drawback with Amorphous technology is an anomaly
know as the Staebler-Wronski
effect whereby the conversion efficiency of a Amorphous
solar panel has the tendency to degrade causing a drop in
output of up to 20% when it is first exposed to sunlight.
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