What are the best solar panels to buy?
Much of your choice will depend on which installers you choose to go with, as they will have brands they prefer to buy from, if only to make use of bulk purchasing.
The numbers you will be looking for are the price, warranty, efficiency – up to 25 per cent or so is possible, degradation (they age, albeit slowly) and power output.
There's plenty of competition in the solar market. A boom in commercial panels used in solar farms, which power up to 5 per cent of the UK grid, means that the technology has come on leaps and bounds in recent years as more money is poured into developing better and cheaper panels.
There is also a big difference between older, cheaper panels and newer ones, which will cost more but yield more power and generally offer a longer life. After 30 years, the amount supplied can drop to less than 80 percent of its advertised supply, but high-end models can offer more than 90 per cent.
When choosing a solar panel, it's best to weigh up the full cost of installation as well as the panel cost, since you'll probably need to pay for the hire of scaffolding and the purchase of other equipment to connect your shiny new panels to your home electricity mains.
Once you have an idea of what the full cost will be, you'll have a better idea of how good a plan it may be to go for cheaper cells. Ones that last longer and provide more power may be worth it to avoid renting more scaffolding in 10 years for replacements.
DMEGC Infinity
China's DMEGC, part of the Hengdian Group conglomerate, could be the biggest energy company you've never heard of. It's shipped more than 50 gigawatts of solar panels since its founding in 1980. This model provides a good compromise between power output, long warranty and decent power longevity, offering more than 87 per cent of its box-fresh output after 30 years.
REA Fusion2 Solar Panel
This is the best panel for efficiency and maintaining power over the long run. Depending on how many cells you buy and your other fitting costs, it may well be the most expensive option however. Made in Australia, the manufacturers say these cells are built to last.
Aiko Neostar
Price, installed: £1250 per kW
Efficiency: 23 per cent
Wattage per panel: 460W
Type: N-Type
Made in: China
Degradation: 88.90 per cent after 30 years
Warranty: 25 years for the product itself, 30 years for the degradation figure
China has invested billions of pounds in making cheap solar cells, and the country's Aiko Neostar range offers amongst the best power output, as well as a long warranty and very respectable efficiency
Jinko Tiger
Founded in 2006, Jinko has grown to be another vast Chinese player in solar panels.
Again, the long warranty, slow ageing rate and good power output make this a good all-round choice.
Sharp NU-AF
Price, installed: £600 per kW
Efficiency: 19 per cent
Wattage per panel: 370W
Type: PERC
Made in: Thailand and Vietnam
Degradation: 81 per cent after 30 years
Warranty: 10 years
Probably the most recognisable brand on the market, and also the budget option, Sharp's NU-AF model uses cheaper PERC technology rather than the N-Type process that dominates the rest of our list.
This is the best budget buy, but you compromise a little in terms of the warranty, efficiency and the power output. The cells also age quicker than their competitors, but those with roof space to spare might decide to plump for them.
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Reuters
4 hours ago
- Reuters
Ford's new line of affordable EVs to start at about $30,000
DETROIT, Aug 11 (Reuters) - Ford plans to start rolling out its new family of affordable electric vehicles in 2027, including a midsize pickup truck with a target starting price of $30,000, the company said on Monday, as it aspires to the cost efficiency of Chinese rivals. The new midsize four-door pickup will be assembled at the automaker's Louisville, Kentucky, plant. Ford (F.N), opens new tab is investing nearly $2 billion in the plant, which produces the Escape and Lincoln Corsair, retaining at least 2,200 jobs, it said in a statement. Chinese carmakers such as BYD ( opens new tab have streamlined their supply chain and production system to produce EVs at a fraction of the cost of Western automakers. While these vehicles have yet to enter the U.S. market, Ford CEO Jim Farley said they set a new standard that companies like Ford must match. 'We have all lived through far too many 'good college tries' by Detroit automakers to make affordable vehicles that ends up with idled plants, layoffs and uncertainty. So, this had to be a strong, sustainable and profitable business," Farley said in a release Monday. Ford has been developing its affordable EVs through its so-called skunkworks team, filled with talent from EV rivals Tesla (TSLA.O), opens new tab and Rivian (RIVN.O), opens new tab. The California-based group, led by former Tesla executive Alan Clarke, has set itself so much apart from the larger Ford enterprise that Farley said even his badge could not get him into its building for some time. EVs sold for an average of about $47,000 in June, J.D. Power data showed. Many Chinese models sell for $10,000 to $25,000. Affordability is a top concern among EV shoppers, auto executives have said, and the global competition for delivering cheaper electric models is heating up. EV startup Slate, backed by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, is aiming for a starting price in the mid-$20,000s for its electric pickup. Tesla has teased a cheaper model, with production ramping up later this year. Rivian and Lucid (LCID.O), opens new tab are also planning to roll out lower-priced models for their lineups, although price points are in the $40,000s to $50,000s. Since rolling out plans earlier this decade to push hard into EVs, Ford has pulled back as the losses piled up. It has scaled back many of its EV goals, canceled an electric three-row SUV, and axed a program to develop a more advanced electrical architecture for future models. Ford last year announced it would start building its midsize truck from the skunkworks team in 2027. The automaker earlier this year estimated losing up to $5.5 billion on its EV and software division. It lost nearly $10 billion combined on those operations from 2023 to 2024. Cutting costs on battery-powered models has been one of the primary goals of Farley, who has said he expects this new family of EVs to be profitable within one year. Ford sells three EVs in the U.S.: the Mustang Mach-E SUV, E-Transit van, and F-150 Lightning pickup. Sales of those vehicles fell 12% in the first half from the year-ago period. Meanwhile, interest in hybrids has surged, with sales up 27% over the same window. Ford recently pushed back production of its next-generation F-150 Lightning and E-Transit to 2028. The elimination of a $7,500 consumer tax credit, loosening regulations on emissions and reduced funding for charging infrastructure are expected to further dampen demand. All this makes it more important for automakers to pick their lanes, Farley has said. "The pure EV market in the U.S. seems to us very clear: small vehicles used for commuting and around town," Farley told analysts on an earnings call last month. By contrast, crosstown rival General Motors (GM.N), opens new tab has electrified vehicles across its entire lineup, from the hulking Hummer to the smaller Equinox SUV. GM spent more time upfront building a ground-up platform as a base for its EV models. Meanwhile, Ford has reconfigured many of its popular gasoline-powered vehicles with batteries to get to market sooner, delaying the development and launch of a unified EV platform, details of which it unveiled on Monday. While being out front has exposed Ford to more EV demand fluctuations over the past two years, it has also learned more about the market, Farley has said. Ford is using lithium-iron-phosphate, or LFP batteries, for the forthcoming family of EVs. The batteries are produced in Marshall, Michigan, using technology from Chinese EV-battery maker CATL that has helped to bring down the sticker price of electric cars.
The Guardian
6 hours ago
- The Guardian
We expected dominance but Peak China may finally have arrived
Proclamations about the inevitability of China's dominance of the global economic system, or the so-called Chinese century, are much less validated by contemporary Trumpian angst than what should be the Communist party's appeal to its intrinsic values and virtues. Common concerns about coercive politics and human rights aside, some notions of China as an unstoppableeconomic, technological and military behemoth sit alongside others focused more on an increasingly sclerotic, over- centralised political economy, that depends on wasteful economic stimulus, and features poor governance and institutions. The fusion of these notions suggests that we may already have reached 'peak China'. At the time of the 2008 financial crisis, China's official, and probably exaggerated, GDP was about $14tn (£10.4tn), or about a third of that of the US. By 2021, it had risen to three-quarters of America's $23.7tn, and there was widespread talk about in which year of the 2020s China would overtake the US. By 2024, however, China's $18tn economy had fallen back to just over 62% of the almost $30tn of the US. In GDP per head terms, China is still no more than 20% of the US. A rising China uniquely lifted its share of global GDP between 2000 and 2021 from 3.5% to 18.5%, but since then it has slipped back to about 16.5%. There is no question that China's rise is at least stalling. The working age and total population are now in relentless decline. The urbanisation rate, just over 60%, is flattening out. Productivity growth has stalled. The long surge in China's share of global manufacturing exports and production has levelled off, and the external environment for China is now much harder and more hostile. A 90-day pause in the US-China tariff war is due to expire on Tuesday, and it is unclear whether it will be extended. Part of the problem is that China has reached the end of extrapolation. The past really is another country. Some of its growth engines could only ever fire once, for example, enrolling children in primary and secondary schools; improving basic healthcare; reaping the demographic dividend of falling dependency rates; and moving people from the countryside to higher-productivity, urban jobs. Some growth also flowed from a number of highly effective policy initiatives such as those captured by the era of reform and opening-up, inspired by Deng Xiaoping: joining the World Trade Organization; creating a genuine market in housing, and exploiting globalisation. None of these can happen again. China's growth model, moreover, based on unrealistically high growth targets and uniquely high investment and savings rates, is becoming swamped by stagnant productivity, debt service difficulties, and misallocation of capital. At the Central Economic Work Conference in December last year, China's premier, Li Qiang, summarised his country's condition by saying candidly that the foundation for sustained economic recovery and growth is not strong, demand is weak, there are pressures on job creation and 'fiscal difficulties' among several local governments. Although consumption has been made a top priority, actual policy measures to make it so have been underwhelming, partly because redistributing economic power to companies and citizens also entails changes in political power, which are anathema to the Communist party. The structural downturn in the property sector, which had at one stage accounted for more than a quarter of the economy, is likely to shrink for the foreseeable future, dogged by lower rates of household formation and smaller cohorts of first-time buyers, both linked to demographics, and a chronic oversupply of unsold and uncompleted real estate. The government has softened its approach to private enterprises and approved a new private economy promotion law to bolster AI, technology clusters and hubs, and reduce regulatory barriers. Low business confidence, though, is not really about regulations but about political interference, and weak demand and profits. The super-globalisation from which China benefited is pretty much over, and the world's biggest export nation is now confronted by a fragmenting and fracturing trade and investment environment in which commerce within blocs is holding up better than trade between them. China's bloc includes a majority of the world's population, but very small proportions of world GDP, investment and wealth. At the same time, developed and middle-income economies, as well as emerging nations, are pushing back against what they perceive to be predatory trade policies by a mercantilist China. Peak China does not stem from doubts about China's industrial prowess and pedigree. It is, though, about two things that can be simultaneously true: China can have world-class companies and trendsetters such as Alibaba, Tencent, BYD, CATL, Huawei and DeepSeek, as well as an economy with systemic imbalances, debt capacity limits, and political and economic contradictions. Put another way, China has islands of technological excellence and leadership in a sea of macroeconomic turbulence and trouble. This characterised Peak Japan 40 years ago, and China is shaping up for the encore. George Magnus is a research associate at Oxford University's China Centre and at Soas University of London. He is the author of Red Flags: Why Xi's China is in Jeopardy
Reuters
6 hours ago
- Reuters
Wall St set for muted open as chip stocks dip on China sales deal
Aug 11 (Reuters) - Wall Street was on track for a subdued start on Monday as major chip companies slipped on the eve of a key tariff deadline after a trade policy shift that involves sharing a portion of revenue from China sales with the Trump administration. Semiconductor giant Nvidia (NVDA.O), opens new tab slipped 0.4% in premarket trading, while Advanced Micro Devices (AMD.O), opens new tab lost 1.2%. A U.S. official told Reuters the companies had agreed to give the United States government 15% of revenue from sales of their advanced computer chips to China, days after the Commerce Department began issuing licenses for the sale of Nvidia's H20 chips. Enabling semiconductor sales to China was an integral issue in the agreement Washington signed with Beijing earlier this year and markets will be keen to know if the latest development will impact the relationship between the world's two largest economies. The deal expires on Tuesday. "It's a good way for the United States government to increase its cash and income... but a lot of people are going to argue that this is the wrong way to go," said Robert Pavlik, senior portfolio manager at Dakota Wealth. "The Chinese government will probably use it as a point to argue that they need different chips because these particular chips might be susceptible to be reviewed by the Americans." Markets also sought clarity on the sector tariffs U.S. President Donald Trump has announced. At 08:48 a.m. ET, Dow E-minis were up 64 points, or 0.14%, S&P 500 E-minis were up 4.75 points, or 0.07%, and Nasdaq 100 E-minis were up 8.5 points, or 0.04%. Traders took a step back after last week's rally helped the S&P 500 (.SPX), opens new tab and the Nasdaq (.IXIC), opens new tab log their strongest weekly performance in more than a month. Investors expect that the recent shake-up at the U.S. Federal Reserve and signs of labor market weakness could nudge the central bank into adopting a dovish monetary policy stance later this year, fueling much of the optimism. July's consumer inflation report is due on Tuesday and investors currently anticipate that the Fed will lower borrowing costs by about 60 basis points by December, according to data compiled by LSEG. A better-than-feared earnings season brought some relief and BofA's monthly fund manager survey showed that owning megacap stocks was again the most popular trade. Apple (AAPL.O), opens new tab was a standout last week following its biggest weekly showing in five years after the iPhone maker unveiled a series of U.S. investment pledges. The company's shares were down 0.5% on Monday. In earnings, Micron (MU.O), opens new tab raised its forecast for fourth-quarter revenue and adjusted profit, reflecting strong demand for artificial intelligence and sending shares of the chip company up 5.1%. U.S.-listed shares of lithium producers rose. Albemarle (ALB.N), opens new tab and Lithium Americas gained more than 10% each after Chinese battery giant Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL) ( opens new tab halted output at a major mine, raising hopes that it would erode the oversupply in a market grappling with soft demand. Intel (INTC.O), opens new tab was up 2.7% after a report said CEO Lip-Bu Tan was expected to visit the White House. Trump had called for his removal last week. Trump is expected to meet Russia's President Vladimir Putin on Friday to try and negotiate an end to the war on Ukraine.
