It s also important to note that bnef s tiered system ranks manufacturers and not specific panel lines.
Tier one solar panels.
According to bloomberg a tier one solar manufacturer is nothing more than a company that has provided their panels for 6 large scale solar projects larger than 1 5mw that have been financed by 6 different banks within the last two years.
The tiered solar panel classification was first developed to show banks which panel manufacturers were legitimate and trustworthy but it s evolved since.
In this 3 tier system the tier 1 list usually has around 35 companies.
That being said a bank would not fund a large scale project worth say 200 million dollars if the product used was likely to fail in the short term thus inadvertently a tier 1 solar panel is a high quality panel or should we say a solar panel that is designed to produce power for as long as the expected lifespan which is around 25 years.
Based on bnef s criteria tier 1 modules are just those that are used in a lot of projects and almost all established solar companies are considered tier 1.
However close observation of the past trend shows that usually the top 5 brands in the tier 1 panel list can be taken as rule of thumb for laymen to select a pv panel brand for their business or residential pv system.
Sunpower solarworld panasonic lg trina jinko rene solar and canadian solar.
Everything else is marketing spin.
Solar panel manufacturers that claim to be tier 1 include.
Each year solar review publishes the latest tier 1 solar panels list in a bid to assist end user education understand the term tier 1 was not created as a quality guideline.
Comprised of existing sources already made publicly available on the internet this latest tier 1 solar panels list 2020 is available in an easily indexable fashion for your convenience.
What are tier 1 solar panels.
Learn what tier 1 solar panels actually mean in this solar basics video based on the story.
Bnef does not publish tier 2 or tier 3 lists so any sub tiered lists out there are just made up marketing terms.
The answer may come as a bit of a shock.
Typically tier 1 solar panels are 10 30 more expensive than tier 2 and tier 3 solar panels.
Not to be confused this list named the latest tier 1 solar panels list 2019 is available online.
Tier 1 solar panels are panels which are produced from tier 1 solar panel manufacturers that comply with a specific set of criteria.
Latest tier 1 solar panels list 2020 as per last years release the bloomberg module tiering list 2019 is not published by bloomberg new energy finance online.
This ranking system tier 1 2 3 etc was made to help big companies to take a decision related to the financing of medium to large scale solar power projects.