Silicon Crystalline vs Thin Film

Solar cells can be made of several technologies. Some of the technologies that are mostly used are silicon crystalline (SiCr) and thin film. Both of these types has its advantage and disadvantage.

SiCr cells are the most common cells found and known. These cells are made of silicon that are refined and doped with certain materials.
These cells can convert solar power with an efficiency of 15-22%. Because of its quite high efficiency, the space needed to generate 1 kW energy is only about 100 foot sq. The lifetime of these cells are quite long with at least 25 years life producing energy. One major drawback is that the price of these cells are quite expensive.

One of the SiCr solar cell is shown below.




BP Solar SX 305M, Solar Panel, 5 Watt, 12 Volt

The other material to make a solar cell is thin film. Thin film solar cell is made from depositing one or more thin layers of photovoltaic material on a substrate. The thickness range of such a layer is wide and varies from a few nanometers to tens of micrometers.
The advantage of thin film over SiCr solar cells is that they are very flexible and do not break during bending. Another advantage of thin film is that they cost less money than SiCr PV cells. However, these cells comes with several disadvantages. One of them is that the effeciency in converting solar radiation to power is only 7-15% (about half than SiCr cells). Based on this, the surface needed to get 1 kW of energy is about 200 foot sq. Another disadvantage is that these cells are less durable namely 20 years guaranteed.

One of the Thin Film PV cell can be seen below.



GSE Sunlinq 25 Watt, Portable Solar Panel, 25 Watt, 12 Volt

In conclusion, SiCr solar cells are more effencient, durable and uses less space but costs more than thin films solar cells.