Kyocera Solar Panels – Review of PV Module Sale Prices for Homes

source:Kyocera

Solar Modules or Solar Panels as they are popularly known as have grown at an astounding rate in recent years as increasing scale and improving technology has made their costs fall at a very steep rate.Solar Panels are now available from hundreds of different manufacturers using different technologies like crystalline Silicon,CIGs and Cd-Te.Solar Panels are sold by hundreds of companies around the world  ranging from small to very large and comes in various shapes and sizes as well.Besides this solar panels are also made of very different materials for example silicon solar panels and thin film solar panels..The cost of the solar panel can also vary a lot depending on the retailer,size of the solar panel,technology and the brand.This makes buying solar panels a confusing problem though most residential and commercial buyers are not involved leaving the decision to the solar installer/EPC company.The advent of Chinese solar panels has made the Western and European solar panel companies lost marketshare rapidly.In fact most of the European companies are shutting factories to open plant in Asia where the costs are much lower.Japanese solar companies however continue to keep their manufacturing in developed countries as they get a premium for their solar panels which are considered of superior quality.

Kyocera is one of the oldest solar panel manufacturers and is second only to Sharp amongst the Japanese companies.It  also manufactures industrial ceramics, telecommunications equipment, office document imaging equipment, electronic components, semiconductor packages, cutting tools, and components for medical and dental implant systems.Kyocera Solar Corp. in Japan was founded in 1996, and Kyocera Solar, Inc. in the U.S. in 1999.The company has production bases in Japan, Mexico, Europe and China and is planning a factory in California as well.The company plans to reach 1000 MW of production by 2013.

Kyocera Panel Prices (Premium Pricing)

Kyocera Panels are retailing at decent retailers for around $1.8-2.5/Watt which is a significant premium to good quality Chinese solar panels which can be bought at around $1.5/watt.The Kyocera 135 Watt Panels cost around $300 which makes it a costly solar panel to buy given that you can buy the cheapest solar panel at $1/watt if you buy in large bulks of 5000 solar panels.Note you can buy 230 Watt Trina Solar Panels for $360 in Retail which implies a price of only $1.5/watt.You can even buy the other Japanese and European solar panels for $1.5-2.5/Watt depending on the technology and the brand of the solar panel.

Kyocera Solar Modules Review

Kyocera sells Three  series of solar panels for residential market.

1) P Series of Solar Panels

The Kyocera KD F Series of Modules come in 135 Watts to 240 Watts range and each cell around 4 watts of power generation capability.Kyocera Kd modules utilize a larger, more powerful, high efficiency 156mm x 156mm solar cell
Kyocera gives a  standard 20 year power output warranty and 5 year workmanship warranty.It has UL and IEC Certificaitons.

2) F Series of Solar Panels

The Kyocera KD P Series of Modules come in 135 Watts to 315 Watts range and each cell around 4 watts of power generation capability.Kyocera KD modules utilize a larger, more powerful, high efficiency 156mm x 156mm solar cell
Kyocera gives a  standard 20 year power output warranty and 5 year workmanship warranty.It has UL and IEC Certificaitons.It also qualifies for “Buy American” since its made in San Diego.

3) Off Grid Solar Panels

In this segment the company sells the KYOCERA—KD100-36 Series Solar Panels which has 36 Cells and 100 Watts rating.

The popular Kyocera Panels are

• Kyocera 50 watt solar panel 251
• Kyocera kc130tm 130 Watt Solar Panel
• Kyocera kd205gx lp Solar Panel

Solar Panel Reviews of Different Brands

Sunpower Solar Panels

Sharp Solar Panels

Sanyo Solar Panels

First Solar Solar Panels

Bosch Solar Panels

BP Solar Panels

What are the Different Types of Solar Panels

Size

Solar Panels come in all sorts of sizes,colours and power.Solar Panels of 20-40 Watts are typically used for applications like a Solar Lamp,Lantern and products using small amounts of power.For Putting Solar Panels on the Roof for Generation of Electricity,sizes vary from 150 Watts to 300 Watts.

Type and Color

There are also 2 different types of Crystalline Silicon Panels – a) Monocrystalline b) Multicrystalline Panels.In general Monocrystalline Panels give higher amounts of power and cost more.Solar Panels generally come in blue color though black color can also be found.

Thin Film Panels

Thin Film Panels are generally used for Building Integrated Photovoltaic (BIPV) applications where the Panels are integrated as a part of the Building Structure.This is in not prevalent in India as of now but will become quite pervasive in the future.

Solar Panel Efficiency Technology and Range

Solar Panel Efficiency can be as low as 7% for amorphous silicon technology to as high as 18% for mono-crystalline silicon technology.Note some of the solar panels used in spacecraft have cells which have conversion factors ranging as high as 40% but those are niche applications.Solar Panels made by First Solar using the Cadmium Tellurium Technology are in the range of 11-12% while the CIGs technology which is being used to make solar panels by a number of companies like Miasole,Solyndra,TSMC and other have the range between 10-13% currently.Note Solar Panel Efficiencies are constantly increasing for all technologies each year.