Record-setting disruption: SolarCity, Elon Musk at it again

October 6, 2015 | By Barbara Vergetis Lundin

SolarCity, who is known for disrupting the century-old energy industry by providing renewable electricity directly to homeowners, businesses and government organizations for less than they spend on utility bills, is at it again.

Credit: Jusben

The company has built the world's most efficient rooftop solar panel -- with a module efficiency exceeding 22 percent. The new SolarCity panel generates more power per square foot and harvests more energy over a year than any other rooftop panel in production, and will be the highest volume solar panel manufactured in the Western Hemisphere, according to the company.

This month, SolarCity will begin producing the first modules in small quantities at its 100 MW pilot facility, but the majority of the new solar panels will ultimately be produced at SolarCity's 1 GW facility in Buffalo, New York. SolarCity expects to be producing between 9,000 and 10,000 solar panels each day with similar efficiency when the Buffalo facility reaches full capacity.

SolarCity's panel was measured with 22.04 percent module-level efficiency by Renewable Energy Test Center, a third-party certification testing provider for photovoltaic and renewable energy products. SolarCity's new panel -- created via a proprietary process that significantly reduces the manufacturing cost relative to other high-efficiency technologies -- is the same size as standard efficiency solar panels, but produces 30 to 40 percent more power.

Initially, SolarCity expects to install the new, record-setting solar panel on rooftops and carports for homes, businesses, schools and other organizations, but it will also be used in utility-scale solar fields and other large-scale, ground level installations.

As for why the company decided to build the panels themselves from the ground up rather than use one of their third-party panel manufacturers, SolarCity Chairman Elon Musk explained to Forbes that "they [the third-party manufacturers] were happy to make a standard efficiency 15 percent panel year-over-year that looked not that great. So, we thought we had to make our own panels."

He added, "I like counter-intuitive moves. I thought people would think, at the time, 'Wow, that's stupid," which is what made Musk think, "That's probably a good idea."

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