What Are Commercial Solar Panels?

Commercial solar panels are made of individual solar cells and within these solar cells there are layers of semiconducting material, usually made up of silicon. The semiconducting material harnesses the sunlight and immediately turns it into electricity since an electric current is formed as electrons move from one layer to another. Solar panels can be installed in a variety of commercial areas and there are more businesses turning to the clean and free energy that solar panels offer. Before installing solar panels, a company would need to contact an appropriately experienced solar panel installation company to survey the area in which they would like to place the panels to see whether there will be enough room to install the number of panels required.

Types of Solar Panels

Solar panels are also referred to as photovoltaic panels or solar PV modules which are able to produce electricity by using sunlight and can still work efficiently on cloudy days. There are various types of solar PV panels such as monocrystalline; polycrystalline, string ribbon silicon and amorphous silicon solar panels and each have their own efficiency rates and costs. Solar concentrating collectors are solar panels that are mainly used for industrial heat requirements, or air conditioning, to name a few of their uses. Concentrating collectors work by converging the sun's rays into a small blackened area and can produce temperatures ranging from several hundred to several thousand degrees.

Cost of Commercial Solar Panel Installation

The cost of installing commercial solar panels depends on the type of solar panels that have been purchased, the number of solar panels and the output wattage the panels are able to produce. The cost of installing commercial PV solar panels could be in the range of £12,700 for a 4kW solar panel system including installation. Commercial solar panel systems with larger power requirements can cost £16,000 for the panels and components without installation and around £35,000 including VAT and installation. The benefits of installing a solar panel system greatly outweigh the costs and there are more and more companies that are investing in solar power.

How Solar Panels are Beneficial

Installing solar panels for commercial purposes will be a major contribution to the environment, in that there will be less harmful carbon emissions. While consuming solar power businesses can benefit from the fact that they will have lower energy bills plus they can earn profits if they sell excess power to the National Grid. Feed-in Tariffs for renewable energy will pay commercial ventures up to 46.4p per kWh of electricity that is generated by solar panels and exported to the national grid and 43.3p per kWh for energy that the business actually uses themselves. An organisation that purchases solar panels will not have to worry about receiving their electricity from their local electric company any longer if they are off-grid. In addition, once solar panels are installed in a business premises, the value of the property is likely to increase.