Should I Buy Solar Shingles or Thin Film Panels?

There's a new wave of solar panels to hit the market in recent months, ones that are ultra thin, ultra lightweight, and ultra easy to install. This is because of a new technology called thin film solar, where solar panels are produced on very light and thin silicon panels instead of the traditional crystalline panels you've seen many times on the tops of many roofs. What this technology means is that the average homeowner now has the chance to not own buy, but to install their own solar panels. In this field, two new advancements come to mind, solar shingles and thin film panels. Solar shingles are actually just what they sound like, solar panels that are meant to mimic regular asphalt roof shingles. Solar shingles don't replace regular roof shingles, but rather, sit over the top of them and blend in seamlessly with the rest of the rooftop, giving your roof a very aesthetic look and feel. The solar shingles are each connected together and the grid produces quite a bit of power, which is amazing considering how well hidden they are. You probably haven't seen very many solar shingles on the tops of many roofs yet. They're still considered somewhat experimental and there aren't many different models available for purchase yet. But you can bet you'll start hearing more about them in the coming years.

Another new and exciting technology in the world of solar energy are thin film solar panels. These solar panels utilize a very state of the art manufacturing process that creates them to be very lightweight and also very thin, even flexible in some cases. Thin film solar, which is also sometimes referred to as flexible solar has been around and available for the past few years now. Because of this, there are now many different models and many different sizes and power outputs. Amazingly, there are even thin film solar panels that are rated at 136 watts and cost less than $500. I think that's impressive, more so when you consider the ease of the installation. In years past, a full solar installation for a regular home would average around $15,000, in many cases more for the panels and the installation. In the manufacturing of thin film panels, the materials required to build them and also the time it takes to produce them are very much less than the time and materials required to make the traditional crystalline panels. If you combine that fact with the fact that thin film solar panels can also be installed easily, the price is naturally very inexpensive.

So the question remains: if you're a homeowner who wants to buy and install their own solar array, but don't really have a lot of technical skills or experience in the world of solar, for a person like you, what's the better way to go, solar shingles or thin film solar panels? From a purely aesthetic standpoint, solar shingles are almost invisible to the eye. If you are a person looking for panels which are both efficient and also which blend in and hide themselves in the rooftop, then solar shingles are probably the way to go, provided you have a rooftop that complies with their requirements. Currently, the only real down side of solar shingles is that they're pretty much a brand new concept, which means that they're still somewhat expensive and there aren't as many options as there are in the world of thin film solar panels. So if you consider both the cost and also the installation factors, thin film solar is probably the better way to go. In years to come, this will probably change as the technology behind solar shingles continues to expand. As of yet, if you take into account the many different factors surrounding buying and installing your own solar panels, thin film panels are still probably the way to go for the average homeowner.

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