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Polycrystalline Solar Panels are one of the 3 common solar panels manufactured today. The other two are Monocrystalline and Amorphous. (Click On Links at the bottom of this page to go to their Descriptions).Polycrystalline Solar Panels are probably the most common solar panel today. Their efficiency is a little lower than the Monocrystalline Panels, (BUT technology is ever changing. The cost of these panels is also lower too. Their panels are made of "Poly-crystalline silicon wafers", which are made by wire-sawing 'block-cast silicon' ingots into very thin (180 to 350 micrometer) slices/wafers. The 'cast blocks of silicon' may contain many small crystals, multi-faceted crystal Since it is cut from a multi-faceted silicon crystal, more surface area is required because of these inherent flaws. Consequently, the flaws slightly lessen the effectiveness of the solar panels' ability to convert the sun's rays into solar energy.
Technology has closed the gap considerable...between the "monocrystalline" and "polycrystalline" solar panels. When you compare a Polycrystalline panel with 35 or more cells to the same Monocrystalline panel, the actual wattage difference is not much per square foot. The visual difference between these two crystallines is that the Polycrystalline has a "shattered glass" appearance while the Polycrystalline is clean and uniformed. And the difference between the Crystalline solar panels and the thin film solar panels (called Amorphous) is that the Crystalline panels are almost always more efficient in converting sunlight to power and you need less panels to make a system. And they are more expensive than the thin film solar panels..but they require less hardware during installation bringing the installation cost down as compared to the amorphous panels which require more hardware to install, and ultimately more labor. Monocrystalline Solar Panels Click HERE
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