Top 5 Most Efficient Solar Panels (2024 Reviews)

What Should You Look for When Choosing High-Efficiency Solar Panels?

Aside from your installer making sure your solar system is sized properly for your home and energy consumption, choosing high-efficiency panels is the best way to maximize your solar savings and ensure you don’t end up paying for a solar array and a high monthly electric bill.

However, it’s not as simple as picking the panel with the highest efficiency rating. There are a few other things to consider that could change which option is actually best for your particular home. The infographic below includes a quick look at some of the most crucial things to think about that contribute to how well solar panels work in real-world conditions as opposed to standard testing conditions in a lab.

Compare the Top-Rated High-Efficiency Solar Panels

Overall, our top recommendations if you’re looking for high-efficiency panels are the Maxeon 6 panels from Maxeon and the Alpha Pure-R panels from REC. You might notice that our second pick actually has the fifth-highest efficiency, and that’s because we considered other crucial factors like degradation rate warranty coverage.

The table below includes some additional information about these two panel models to help you decide which of these is the right option for your solar project. We’ll also include info for our top panel recommendation from the other providers on our list for comparison.

Compare the Top-Rated High-Efficiency Solar Panel Manufacturers

As far as the best manufacturers overall for high-efficiency panels, we’d have to choose Maxeon again as our number one recommendation, although our second spot goes to LONGi. All of Maxeon’s panel models come with superior warranty coverage, reliability and durability, and LONGi is a great low-cost option that still brings plenty of value for the money.

The table below includes a side-by-side look at the product lines as a whole from these providers and the others that topped our list. We’ll include scoring for each based on our methodology, which will be explained in greater depth later in this article.

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Why Is Solar Panel Efficiency Important?

It would be unfair to equate the most efficient solar panels as being the best, since a number of other factors — namely durability, cost, warranty and power — can have a large impact on overall quality. However, in residential solar, efficiency is typically one of the more important considerations. Here’s why.

Quicker Payback Period

The more efficient your solar power system, the higher your power output will be, and the more quickly you’ll recoup your initial investment. The cost of solar panels can be intimidating, but efficient panels will help slash a larger portion of your electricity bills, accelerating your solar payback period.

Something else to keep in mind is that the more efficient your solar panels are, the lower number of solar panels and inverters you’ll need to achieve your home energy goals.

Better for Limited Space

Many residential solar energy projects are confined in terms of space available for solar panels. Some might see their roofs and think there’s plenty of space, but zoning laws and regulations often require spaces between panels and gaps between the arrays and the sides of the roof.

For homes with less roof space, high-efficiency panels allow you to do more with less. In commercial solar installations where you have more space to work with, efficiency won’t be as big a factor.

Doing More With Less

In addition to working with limited space, requiring fewer solar panels lowers the impact of your solar project itself. As Dr. Yifeng Chen, head of efficiency research and development at Trina Solar, says, “ improving module efficiency is a key to helping customers save land, labor, cables, etc.”

The highest-efficiency solar panels require fewer materials, shipping costs and waste. It may not seem like much to shave off one or two panels from your solar array, but seeing as the U.S. averages some 3 million solar installations per quarter, the impact can add up. Check out this video exploring solar panel efficiency:

What Determines Solar Panel Efficiency?

Two main factors determine solar panel efficiency: the makeup of the photovoltaic (PV) cell , and the structure of the panel. You might wonder what differentiates the two.

Solar Cell Efficiency

A solar cell is the smallest unit within a solar panel, usually composed of silicon atoms. The photovoltaic effect — which is the process by which sunlight is turned into electricity — happens in the solar cells themselves, and solar panels join together multiple cells to produce higher amounts of power and allow that power to flow through a home.

The most efficient types of solar panels are usually monocrystalline (rather than polycrystalline panels or thin-film). In this type of panel, the solar cell is cut from one solid monocrystalline silicon crystal.

This leads to fewer imperfections in the cell, making them more capable of absorbing sunlight and, thus, more efficient. It’s possible you’ve heard about N-type or P-type solar cells in your research as well.

This won’t matter very much to the average customer, but if you’re curious, these solar cell types differ in their chemistry due to the number of electrons they carry. N-type cells are negatively charged (via phosphorus), while P-type cells are positively charged (via boron). Multi-junction solar cells exist, too, made with both P- and N-type materials.

Solar Panel Efficiency

Overall solar panel efficiency has more to do with the structure of the panel itself. Even if you have the most efficient solar cells available, the next step is to gather those electrons and direct a current in a specific direction.

A solar panel has to be as smoothly interconnected as possible, so as not to lose any energy in this part of the process. Temperature, cell type and design will have a large effect on overall efficiency in this context.

At the risk of getting too technical, here are a number of aspects of solar panels that factor into efficiency.

• Wavelength: The spectrum of light that a solar cell is able to absorb can vary. Most modern solar cell technology is only capable of capturing visible light, excluding other wavelengths like infrared and UV rays. In general, the wider the spectrum of light that can be captured, the more efficient the cell will be. Some researchers are currently focusing on solar cells capable of capturing infrared rays, which would dramatically increase efficiency.
• Temperature: High temperatures and extreme weather conditions can put a lot of stress on a solar panel. In fact, solar panels are actually more effective in colder conditions when they can work without overheating. Panels that are durable, and that can withstand high temperatures, will have greater overall efficiency and lifespan.
• Reflection: Solar panels need a protective coating on them to ensure their longevity. What’s challenging, however, is that this protective coating shouldn’t reflect any of the potential energy the solar cells are trying to capture. Higher-efficiency panels will have high-quality protective coatings that reflect the least light possible, increasing overall energy production.

Environmental Factors Affecting Solar Panel Efficiency

While solar panel efficiency is determined in large part by solar cell technology and the construction of the panels themselves, there are also a number of other real-world contributors to the overall amount of power your system will be able to generate.

• Climate and Latitude: Climate and latitude have a large impact on the overall efficiency of your solar energy system. The closer you live to the equator, the more direct sunlight you’ll receive on an annual basis. Climate factors in as well. If you live somewhere rainy or often covered by clouds, you won’t get as much production out of your system.
• Solar Panel Orientation: Similar to the role of latitude, your panel orientation will affect efficiency. If you live in the northern hemisphere, the best direction for your solar panels to face is south (and north if you’re in the southern hemisphere), as this is how they will get the most direct sunlight. If your roof isn’t at a great angle for solar, your system will be less efficient.
• Dirt, Dust or Grime Buildup: This factor is particularly unappreciated — you might be surprised how much production you lose when you don’t clean your panels. Fortunately, it’s pretty easy to give your panels the routine maintenance they deserve to keep your home powered on clean energy.

Bottom Line: What’s the Best High-Efficiency Solar Panel for You?

Overall, we believe the Maxeon 6 panels from Maxeon are the best high-efficiency panels you can buy for residential solar panel projects. Maxeon has more than 30 years of experience in solar technology innovation, it has some of the best warranty coverage in the entire industry and it provides the highest efficiency rating and some of the most impressive performance specifications available. Maxeon panels are expensive, but we think they’re well worth the investment and will end up paying for themselves.

With that being said, we recommend you get multiple quotes from installers in your area to compare the proposed solar energy system specifications and the cost. You should also consider things like your climate, your monthly energy consumption and the size of your roof before deciding which panel is ideal for your property.

Additionally, the installers in your area may not carry the options we’ve mentioned above. Some other honorable mentions for maximizing your solar power production include panels from Panasonic, Trina Solar, Silfab and Q Cells panels. These companies all have above-average efficiency ratings. You can click the buttons below to get personalized estimates for your solar project.

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Methodology: How We Reviewed High-Efficiency Solar Panels

Of course, in a list of the panels with the highest efficiency, we’ve listed the panels in order of their raw efficiency rating. However, we use a more complicated system to get an overall product ranking, which leads to discrepancies like REC—with the fifth-highest efficiency—ranking second overall. We’ll explain our criteria below for transparency.

• Efficiency (25%): One of the most crucial things we considered was the peak efficiency rating for the panels we reviewed. In most cases, a high efficiency rating means greater savings over time for you. That’s not always the case, but greater efficiency does mean higher energy production, at least right after your installation is completed. Plus, a high starting point leaves more room for degradation before a panel becomes less beneficial than another option with a lower starting efficiency.

• Durability (20%): The degradation rate of a panel’s efficiency is what we believe is the next most crucial thing to consider when comparing the efficiency of solar panels. Panels that lose efficiency more rapidly could end up generating less solar power than panels that start at a lower efficiency but lose less over time. A perfect example of this is the Tiger Neo panel from Jinko Solar. It maintains just 80.7% of its efficiency over 25 years. Year one, the Tiger Neo outperforms the REC Alpha Pure-R—22.6% as opposed to 22.3%. At year 25, though, the Tiger Neo sits at just 18.14%, while the REC panel would still be at 20.29%. We also consider the panel’s ability to withstand extreme weather conditions.

• Warranty coverage (20%): Warranty coverage is a huge deal when you’re spending $10,000 to $20,000 or more on your PV equipment. Panel manufacturers that have longer and more appealing warranty coverage are more likely to provide superior service, which could end up saving you money on repairs or maintenance. As such, we rank companies with better warranties and greater panel lifespans higher.

• Cost Per Watt (20%): Next, we consider the average price per watt of different panels. Unfortunately, you’ll usually have to pay a premium for high-efficiency panels, which may or may not be worth the money over time. Cost isn’t the primary driving force, but we rank panels lower if they are prohibitively expensive for some homeowners.

• Temperature coefficient (10%): The temperature coefficient of a panel is important for solar customers who live in hot climates. All panels lose efficiency as temperature increases, but a panel with a lower starting efficiency could end up being better overall if you live in a particularly warm area and it has a low efficiency loss to high temperature.

• Sustainability (2.5%): The EcoWatch team always focuses on sustainability, so we rank companies higher if they use recycled materials to manufacture their panels and have recycling programs for panels that have reached the end of their life. We also look at a company’s history in terms of social sustainability, including the quality of life for employees.

• Appearance (2.5%): Panels that are all black and don’t have visible grid lines tend to be more desirable. We rank companies and panels slightly higher if they meet both of these criteria.