Pros of cheap solar panels: Sustainability: Cheap solar panels still help reduce residential carbon emissions and make your home greener. Reduced energy bills: Installing cheap solar panels can help you save anywhere between £440–£1,005 on electricity bills, increase your home value, and lower your environmental impact.
If you’re looking to buy cheap solar panels, we recommend looking at options from Q Cells and LONGi, in particular. These are both tier-one panel manufacturers that offer low prices, solid warranty coverage and above-average efficiency ratings for their products.
While affordable solar panels may have lower efficiency levels compared to premium options, it's still important to review the efficiency ratings of different brands. Higher efficiency panels will generate more electricity from sunlight, maximising your energy production.
Monocrystalline silicon is the best kind of solar panel in terms of efficiency. It is more efficient than polycrystalline silicon, which is the second most common type of residential solar panel. Monocrystalline solar panels are much more efficient than their polycrystalline counterparts in the production of solar energy.
The anti-reflective glass on the X-Series panels reduces glare, and the back-contact conductivity gives the panels a smooth finish with none of the gridlines you see on other panels. SunPower is consistently one of our top picks for solar companies overall, and we found the Maxeon X-Series to be one of the best cheap panels for residential use.
Eagle Continental: This panel is my recommendation for the most affordable solar panel for homeowners on a budget. Its 19.8% efficiency rating is good, but not great, but its cost per watt, coming in at $2.25, is hard to beat. Eagle G4: The Eagle G4 is a big step up from the Continental.