“Australia’s obsession with cheap solar panels”

if you were to recommend aa panel what would that be? peterh

Hi Peter

I’ll have to give you three, not just one.

SunPower
LG
Winaico

However, if you are looking for the best solar products at a cheaper price point, see here:

Martin, I saw this article this morning and thought about what you right about in your eBook and what I see in the forum: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05-27/australias-obsession-with-cheap-solar-derailing-market-insiders/11139856.

Jim

Thanks @Jim , yep it’s a major problem that we are trying to educate people about. Invest a bit more up front and it’ll be worth it many times over in the long run.

Find the right installer, and buy good quality products. They don’t have to be the top end (although it certainly doesn’t hurt) but it’s really important not to buy the low grade stuff that’s being dumped here like the ABC article talks about:

Key points:

  • An audit found 1.2 per cent of rooftop solar installations have been inspected by the Clean Energy Regulator
  • The regulator’s inspections found one in six solar installations were “substandard”, and about one in 30 were “unsafe”
  • Based on the sample, the audit found there would be tens of thousands of “unsafe” installations

Marty,

I am in the process of selecting solar panels for my home. there are a couple of articles in the internet I came across like


All of them, even the one from 2017, seems to mention Canadian panels and Jinko panels consistently. So, are they really good brands to procure? I am well aware that tier-1 lists are just based on manufacturing capacities and all. However, they seem to be the only “indicator” that ranks panels. Any suggestions? Thanks

Hi Neon,

Yes you are correct the Tier 1 ranking does not guarantee the solar panel is high quality and reliable, although it is a common term that sales companies and manufacturers use. The Tier rating was developed by Bloomberg New Energy Finance Corporation and is basically used to rate the solar panel ‘manufacturer’ in terms of financial stability ie. how well the company is doing and will they likely be around to support any warranty issues in the future.

Jinko and Canadian Solar are both reasonably well regarded but defintiely not on top of the list. As explained in our detailed articles the leading manufacturers with the longest warranties and best performance are LG, SunPower, REC, Winaico and Q cells.

In our articles we highlight the best quality and most reliable solar panels on the Australian market based on company history, quality, real world performance and feedback from solar industry professionals.

See our post here on what tier 1 solar panels actually mean.