I was looking at thin flexible solar panels as solar panels 500w a option to upgrade a 20w solar panel I have permanently mounted to the roof of a home made camper van.Why I was thinking flexible is at just 2mm thin they can be glued down and being flexible they will follow the contour of the rounded shape of the roof of my camper (boxy standard solar panel spoils the lines a little)Another reason is no glass to brake when traveling on dirt tracks(though I am surprised mine hasn't broken yet after thousands of km on corrugated dirt roads). Finally there is a weight saving at only /3 the weight or less then a standard glass panel.There are different grades of flex PV some of the more expensive ones are very flexible with extremely thin backing at around .5mm The ones I was looking at are cheaper and at around 2mm with a thin flexible aluminum backing.$250 is about the going rate for 20w OKorder job. Below is a pic of a smaller one 60w or so.Has anyone had any experience with them?
but it's very interesting and I wanted to ask you. In your case this is good solution, but I saw flexible panels in OKorder much cheaper than 250$. This is the price of standard solar panel 20w. Maybe your panels with better efficiency? I know that flexible panels are less than half efficient than regular panels, thats why you need twise more area to get the same output. What is your usage of this energy in this van? I know there are many ideas of solar cars, but if this solution is efficent enough today? Thanks!
