Sunpower panels vs Trina solar - Real life testing

testing a 310w sunpower and getting an idea of how multiple things impact the watts. towards end you will see most of my tests were with a panel that was 10% lower in watts than another.

sunpower is clear winner as expected but the much cheaper Trina did really well and it is a 300w panel for comparison.

[maximevallin]

Explanation:
You charge a 24V battery (25 to 26V charging)

1 / The SunPower panels have a higher voltage than the traditional panels (They have more smaller cells therefore a higher voltage and a lower current -> Umpp 50 or 60V) it is composed of 8 lines of cells so I assumes 4 bypass diodes. When you shade you lose 1/4 of the voltage (12 or 15V) but the residual voltage remains higher than that of the battery and the charge continues (1/4 less power)

2 / The Trina panel and other 60 cells are made up of 6 lines and 3 bypass diodes and provide a voltage of 30V. During shading, the panel loses 10V and the residual voltage (20V) can no longer charge the battery (26V).
The residual load (30W) is explained by
an operating point close to the no-load voltage of the panel (Uoc = 40V if shading 40x2 / 3 = 26V) and a residual current charges the battery but at a very low power (30W).

3 / The operation observed is specific to the battery charge.
On a string inverter (operating from 150 to 800V) if a shaded panel loses 1/3 of voltage (10V), on a 500V string (10/500 = 2%), the power will also drop by 2% no more. This is independent of the technology or brand of the panel!

[lycananytime]

Hi Jarvie
always attach panels with same voltage (+-5) and same Amps. Like sunpower had 48 V and 5 amps, and Trina 32 V and 9 Amps, different Volts and Current, in this case the volts lowest one will also reduce the efficiency of the panel with higher volts. But when you attached both sunpower Same brand almost had same volts and current produced higher efficinecy. 430+.

[jybuis]

oh ffs, dumb stuff. "shading" with your hand? and why are angles so hard to understand, you don't need empirical data to understand the simple trigonometry to describe what's going on .. watts per square meter and panel exposure

[MyWasteOfTime]

Sun reflecting off your silver trailer is also affecting the results. Good video!

[adamdavidsonuk]

Great video. I'm amazed how much difference a small amount of shade makes.

[drtkalexander]

Both are priced same in Kerala, Kottayam

[Passco]

This is probably the best video I found with direct comparison. Thank you you are like hidden gem into many trash talking videos

[knightofcydonia]

Where did you get this SunPower panel??

[seyedmojtabasiadat]

you made a big mistake connecting both together.
you cannot connect solar panels that have different spect together. Trina has a 10w less when you connecting this 2 panel together on of them make push other and make hotspot that the reason I think bypass diodes works in connecting panels together they must be homogenous.
it is not good comparing the power output of these 2 panels that have different power and different technology

[ottifantiwaalkes]

Sunpower flex panels show severe sundamage before 3 years. Surface gets damaged by UV. Surface layer starts to crumble like all bad plastics do. No warranty. Rip off.
Need to replace every other year.

[carln]

Trina panel - is it new and is it mono or poly?