staff@slashgear.com (Rob Rich)
2024-04-03 10:45:37
www.slashgear.com
Amorphous silicon panels predate all other thin film panels, and have been in use for decades in small electronics like solar-powered calculators and watches. Additionally, they can still be found in lots of modern devices like solar-powered exterior lights — and those ever-present calculators.
These panels are basically just a thin layer of silicon spread over another surface like plastic, glass, or metal, while their flexibility makes them tougher to physically break. Low light conditions doesn’t hamper the performance of a-Si panels very much, either, and they’re also the least expensive to produce of the four main thin film panel types. Making these the cheapest (on a cost per-panel basis) option, though not necessarily the best or most overall-affordable one.
On the other hand, the overall efficiency of a-Si panels isn’t great at around 6-8%. That low efficiency only gets lower over time, too, with levels often dropping as soon as they’re installed in whatever device they’re intended for. They don’t usually last as long as other panel types, either.