If you’ve only just had the most efficient residential solar panels in Australia installed on your roof, unfortunately you won’t be able to enjoy that bragging point for much longer: Aiko Solar claims to have (again) broken their own record with what they claim is the first residential panel in Australia to exceed 24% module efficiency.
The Shanghai-based company has announced the local launch of the Neostar 480W, which will maintain a compact footprint of 1757 x 1134mm.
SolarQuotes’ resident fact-checker Ronald Brakels notes that “Aiko has sold panels Neostar panels overseas with efficiencies of up to 25%. But these have been large panels that are around 2.5 metres long, which makes them cumbersome to install and often difficult to fit on a residential roof.”
He added: “The higher the solar panel efficiency, the more electricity can be generated from a given amount of roof space. So they are especially useful for people with limited roof space.”
SolarQuotes approached Aiko to confirm the precise efficiency level achieved, with the company revealing that the Neostar 480W has reached 24.1% efficiency.
Aiko Country Director Thomas Bywater advised SolarQuotes that: “essentially in the last 12 months we have been able to lift the same architecture about 30 watts on the existing production line through adjusting the time of certain processes, the types of pastes and materials for making cells, and tailored selection of the underlying silicon (we need actually less doping, more resistivity).”
The Solar Panel Efficiency Arms Race
The efficiency percentage represents how much sunlight energy hitting a panel’s surface is then converted into electrical energy. To compare the Neostar 480W’s performance with some other market leaders:
- Longi’s Scientist panels available in Australia feature 23.3% efficiency — the same rating as Canadian Solar’s best;
- Longtime efficiency kings Maxeon Sunpower’s highest rating is 23%;
- Premium brand REC’s most efficienct panel is 22.6%.
Where it used to be the case not so long ago that a higher efficiency panel came at a premium price, that dynamic is changing rapidly.
Ronald expressed optimism about the role this efficiency arms race has on panel prices. “Higher efficiency means less material is required per watt to make the panel, helping keep costs down,” he says. “And panel costs have really come down over the past 14 months.”
Produced at the company’s facility in the Chinese city of Zhuhai, “initial pilot shipments of the 480W Neostar 2P are already en route to Solar Juice, Aiko’s local distribution partner,” a spokesperson for Aiko said in a statement.
Aiko solar panels set in place by NSW-based installers Kennedys Plumbing and Electrical.
Winning Over Australian Installers
The announcement comes after Aiko convincingly won the 2025 SolarQuotes Installers’ Choice Awards for Best Solar Panels as a first-time entrant, after only launching in Australia early last year.
A clue to Aiko’s popularity with Australian installers might be that the company’s slick marketing operation pitches as much to them as to homeowners.
Aiko’s press release announced the Neostar 480W has been “meticulously engineered to meet the needs of Australian solar installers … weighing under 22 kilograms and occupying less than 2 square metres, the panel retains the compact, lightweight design that installers value for safe handling and ease of installation.”
Aiko has also upgraded its standard Neostar 2P 465 Watts panel to 470 Watts across major distributors, and teased the arrival of other new solar module types in the coming weeks.
Aiko Solar was the clear winner in the 2025 SolarQuotes Installers’ Choice Awards for Best Solar Panels.
A Shady Marketing Approach
Aiko’s marketing approach has attracted some controversy in Australia however, with questions asked of its claims that its panels cope better with shade interference than competitors through its “Partial Shading Optimisation” solution.
Scrutiny by MC Electrical attracted a furious response from Aiko, who allegedly told the Brisbane-based installer that a video made about their shade claims was “a grubby attack that they’ll never forget”.
How Efficient Can Solar Panels Get?
Back at Aiko HQ, Bywater told SolarQuotes that the company has scope to hit new heights in the near future.
“We did initially think it would be necessary to launch our 3rd generation panels in order to get 480 watts, but we’ve been able to do it with the existing tech currently on the shelf,” he said. “Excitingly, we think it is even possible to get a 54 cell production module to 485 watts on the current architecture.”
The next generation of Neostar panels due “in the back end of the year” will change the architecture to put the “module bus” on the rear too, which Bywater says could mean Aiko goes past 485 watts pretty quickly.
Aiko has set its sights high, last year announcing a US$4 million initiative with the Australian Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics aimed at achieving 30% efficiency with interdigitated back contact solar cells.
Ronald has raised an eyebrow at the goal, saying: “They say they want to get to 30% efficiency. That’s going to be tough, but here’s hoping they can creep their way towards it.”
Efficiency is an important consideration for solar panels, but not the only one — particularly if you have plenty of roof space. For more on what to consider, look to our comprehensive guide on buying solar panels.
About Max Opray
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Im about to pull down 6kw of 15year old panels and replace them with 20kw of Aiko Gen 2 panels. Efficiency was a consideration, but much lower on the totem pole than the Hail resistance tests recently reported here ( a subset of the dutch tests reported in the blog in the last month) . I live in a town where not so long ago we were on the national news for a fierce hail storm than destroyed a lot of cars and local roofs and shopping centers etc …. If I can choose a panel that has met and passed the testing for 50mm sized hail where a bunch of high end competitors only met and passed the 40mm size hail, and I intend for the panels to last at least as long as the previous ones then that extra size/resilience might well be worth it (at least I hope it is) …. Hopefully they helps me achieve the 15yr objective…time will tell I guess.
Technically, that is a waste of money. If you are hit by 50mm hail stones, you will be claiming insurance on something in the house/property. So you will be paying the excess regardless of if they also need to replace the panels. All you have done is saved yourself the 6 months on grid power while they replace the solar panels. On the other hand, perhaps that is important to you.
Derek Et Al
Its a truism that insurance is there as a last resort. If you’ve been involved with insurance you know enough to know that what insurance really is, is a pre approved financial loan that steps in when you would be least likely to pick up a real loan.
Bad sh%t happens, you claim on your insurance knowing that at best you’ll get something equivalent to what you had before but most times it will be inferior by accountant design, and you’ll get to pay that back over the next 5-10 years in increased premiums because you had the temerity to actually use what you purchased.
You might (almost certainly will) think what a bunch of Ar%eholes that insurance company turned out to be, but by design your new insurance company will happily collect your repayments via increased premiums. While the original company doesnt benefit, the old customer of the one you are now with who moved to your original provider as we all took one step to the right does the same thing…
Bottom line if there is anyway you can avoid claiming on insurance then seriously consider it…the pain the alternate approach introduces to your life is likely to have a much shorter impact period…
Its like a speeding fine. You get it once and pay it…..and then you get fined again every year for 5 years or more until the demerit points disappears from your record. Insurance gets to see your demerit records… State gets 1 year of fine income, insurance company’s get a never ending inflow of $ from that route…..There must come a point when the benefits of insurance are more than offset by their never ending increases in premium and avoidance of paying claims…
So that’s why I think hail size matters if I want to avoid (and if not clear by this stage I definitely do!!) dealing with Insurance.
Andy, I’m a hail tech PDR bloke, and let me tell you those eastern states big hail stones are likely going to break any solar panel on the market, especially if they get a good hit near the edge on the toughened glass (the most susceptible part of a toughened glass pane).
Make sure you get your homes insurance cover adjusted to include the system.
Andy, make sure you get your home insurance updated to include the solar.
Hail can break almost any toughened glass, 4mm auto toughened gets smashed quite often in eastern states storms, golf ball size is one thing, get up to cricket ball size 75mm and it’s going to demolish solar panels.
PDR tech here with loads of hail work under the belt, it is getting worse in the east past 10 years.
Hi, I live in the eastern subs of Melb, a number of years ago we were hit with a very severe thunderstorm which included 50-70mm nobbly hail stones.
The damage that was inflicted by this storm was massive to say the least.
I have a Sunpower E20 327watt PV system which is now 10 years old, the system is on a very low slope of 8º, so the panels took the full force of the stones, but while the storm was happening, all I was thinking was that I’d be doing an insurance job upgrade of replacing those panels with new.
After the storm had passed I got up on my ladder to find not even a scratch, let alone even a dent, bugger I thought, the insurance panel upgrade wasn’t gunna happen!
Afterwards I walked out to my car to find it was now looking rather sad with all the panels looking very re arranged and a cracked windscreen to boot.
The guy who live opposite to me, his 3 month old black BMW was a total mess, of course he was so happy!
All I could think was, if all the cars were built to the standards of my Sunpower panels.
I live to the north of town, those living to the south copped it really bad, most home roofs needed to be repaired and that was indiscriminate tile or tin… In fact the roof subcontractors have only returned to the old level of activity in the last 12 months 3 years after the major storm. A friend of mines wife worked at a shopping center where the majority of the roof failed and collapsed notably mostly over the local kmart. almost without exception every car in the car park that was insured was written off….. Hard to worry about panel longevity in hail if the roof it sits on collapses hey!!
But all we can individually do is try and ensure that the choices we make are the best choices for the climate realities we now live in.
I personally suspect that panel size is likely to be inversely proportional to panel life WRT hail resistance. The new panels are close to double the m^2 of the old so anything I can do to lift my chances of getting a long life I should I think.
It sounds like there’s nothing amiss with your panels.. only that you want more power and possibly more hail resistance. I believe because you have nothing wrong with your current array, that you are wasting money. The longer your panels are on the roof making power , the more they actually save you! There are comments already about hail damage insurance which is accurate. If you do go ahead with a swap, ensure your panels go to a farm for reuse.
15 years ago panels degraded about 2% in the first year and >1% each year thereafter. After 15 years the 6.5kw array is only producing 5.5kw. Given that the original panel efficiency was circa 17% then the m^2 for the array is much more efficiently used when used with newer higher efficiency panels that degrade at half the current rate per year. Being as I live in a 2 story home the m^2 available and usable for solar isnt huge compared to more traditional single story homes.
Further, given where feed in tariffs are heading the new game in town is self consumption. For our house the current array doesnt provide me what I need to support extended electrical use. We’ve just ordered a BYD shark 6 PHEV and I need more PV. Its that simple.
Lastly the issue here isn’t the continued viability of the panels its actually the continued viability of the inverter. The old inverter is a transformer based inverter, something that is no longer available from any supplier. The rules as I understand them state that I can arrange repair an array and not be subject to the current wiring rules if a like for like swap/repair occurs, that is, if the inverter is a transformer based design (which is heavy and inefficient, but very reliable up until now), as compared to current designs. The transformer provides electrical isolation between input DC and output AC. If I replace teh inverter with a transformerless design then the panles all have to be individually earthed. And that requires each panel to be mechanically lifted and modified. There is no reason on earth to pay teh same $ to do that with an old array as it would be to simply replace the array with new. The panel costs are insignificant when compared to the labour costs. 15 years out of teh current SMA/BP solar 6kw inverter is a magnificent innings, but relistically I cnt expect it to last much longer, The Inverter is full of big large value electrolytic capacitors and these over time will fail. Then what?
I hear you. I’d wait till the inverter died, then. The old adage..’don’t fix what ain’t broken’. At that point you’d have a viable reason to replace all. My array is now 8 years old, and barring catastrophic loss, will stay on the roof another 17 years. I mean, it’s your money and your call..but I live well not by replacing things I don’t need replacing! 😀
Bloody excellent. 330W was the largest capacity standard size panel only about four five years ago.
The extra 3% efficiency over my Trina panels would be nice to have, but for me the jump from 415w to 480w is the biggest benefit, the extra 1.18kw output for about same roof space would be nice (just checked, Aiko are somewhat larger).
I can’t get my head around how many KWH that would make to our last year production of 1.4 MWH (anyone ?), but if taking just the 4c FIT now and likely less and less in future, it’s probably not economically necessary for many.
Great for that extra roof space production though, if needed.
In Adelaide 1.18kW of north facing panels should generate an annual average of 1,759kWh. That’s according to PVWatts. They’ll generate roughly 15% less if they’re facing east or west. You can go to the PVWatts site and enter the relevant details if you want to nail it down:
https://pvwatts.nrel.gov/
Thanks Ron, I kind of roughly figured we might make an extra 1 mwh or so which would go to the grid, so that is about $40 more FIT here in SA.
We have a mix of east, north, and west on the roof, seems to work pretty well.
EDIT, sorry, that’s 14mwh for 2024, 10mwh to the grid.
Considering a reputable and respected solar installer, tester and reviewer has demonstrated this company has used a misleading trade show demonstration to support shade performance claims, do you think it wise to repeat the efficiency claims made by this company?
Maybe I have missed something and there is independent data to support this efficiency claim? Seems a bit like Enphase and their discredited BS about impacts of shade everyone was just repeating.
Stuff like that sticks so we still have installers pushing Enphase for shade benefits.
Yeah, I saw that video. I think what I saw was that the AIko Panel as compared to a single select competitor was better. Teh marketing BS inferred that from teh Demo AIKO was superior, but to me without the test including a number of alternate competitor it was ,to me, very likely that the competitor was simply inferior.
As I understand it over time the number of sections in a panel that are protected by bypass diodes has increased. If the competitor panel had 2 sections only then teh panel can produce its Vmp, if no bypass diodes are active, or Vmp/2(minus the forward voltage drop of the diode say 0.6v) if one is active. If their panel had 3 diodes then it can produce Vmp, or Vmp*2/3 or Vmp*1/3 if one or 2 bypass diodes are active. Careful selection of the pond pump may see it cease working at Vmp/2 but run successfully at Vmp*2/3.
Like all good BS Marketing its not what they say that is wrong, its what they let you infer in the silence after the talking stops…..They generally know that your inference is yours and they arent responsible for any wrong conclusions you might come to…..
I didn’t think too much about it, to me that was marketeers at work and education trumps marketeering every time….. I just wish the clever engineer who was no doubt dragged kicking and screaming to work for the marketing department was back with his other compatriots working on making teh Gen 3 or Gen 4 panels even better….
I watched that MC electrical video again and I think the Competitors panel was a Topcon 440w panel. I googled it and (assuming I got the right one) it looks like it has 3 bypass diodes as well. But I couldn’t find anything that identified how the 3 subarrays in the TOPcon or the Neostar 2 are laid out. MY Gut feel is that they are laid out differently and as such the way the shading was applied was physically the same but electrically different, such that on one panel it either bypassed to 2/3Vmp and the other bypassed to 1/3 Vmp…. we could have known for certain if the demo had a voltmeter across each of the 2 panels supply and an ampmeter in line with both…but as I said before they want to you to jump to an incorrect conclusion, adding those things may help prevent it and as such they’re not there…
Interesting read on an installer opinion on AIKO, on that YouTube video.
I still going to go with AIKO. They just offer more power for the limited roof space I have.
Hi Matthew,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts! I came across your comment and completely understand your concern.
As a global leader in solar PV R&D, AIKO has been driving innovation for over 15 years. With R&D centers in China and Europe and a team of high-profile scientists, we have led key industry advancements, including developing tubular PERC technology in 2016, inventing and mass-produce 210mm cells in 2019, and inventing high-efficiency N-Type All Back Contact cells in 2021.
We take transparency seriously, and our claims on partial shading optimisation are independently tested by world-renowned labs under rigorous evaluation standards:
• Tested by TÜV Nord: https://bit.ly/3Qvd6Fb
• Certified by TÜV Rheinland: https://bit.ly/41qUoVy
• Performance analysis by Enertis Applus+: https://bit.ly/43edOyl
• Publication by PV Tech: https://www.pv-tech.org/industry-updates/enertis-applus-report-highlights-superior-performance-and-cost-efficiency-of-aiko-abc-modules/
• Explanation: https://bit.ly/3QxQFPQ
Since results can be compromised by factors, we encourage customers to rely on qualified third-party testing for objective, unbiased verification.
Learn more about the science behind our technology: https://aikosolar.com/au/blog-from-mystery-to-mastery/
For any concerns, reach us at [email protected] or call 1300 245 628.
Best,
AIKO ANZ Team
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Other times they are just too amusing not to share
As this web site is now owned by google (“the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.”), owned by one of Trump’s confederates, with the policy of blocking free communications, if this post gets through, then, I have defeated the first obstacle – the google gotcha malware. After about an hour of trying to get past that, in a previous attempt to post a similar comment post to this one, regarding the above article, I had to abandon the attempt, due to the hostile malware.
Also, if this post gets through, then I will somehow, have overcome the second obstacle to posting comments on this blog – the censors.
Now, to the post content as relating to the particular article above.
As shown in the image above, of the installed panels on the terracotta hip roof, the panels are grossly inefficient.
A question that should be considered, is how much available roof space is unable to be covered by the panels, due to their design.
The true efficiency of PV panels, in a particular installation, should be the generating capacity of the panels, divided by the available (and, not the “usable”, which is limited by the inefficiency of the panels design) roof area.
A quick simple example of PV panels (in)efficiency, is this. In 2013-2014, I had two systems installed (one, a 3kW inverter, the other, a 1.5kW inverter, due to applicable regulations limitations), with 5kW of panels. On two of my roof faces, I had, on each, 2x250W Hanwha (I think the brand was) panels. In 2022, 9 years later, only one 440W Jinko panel would fit on each of those roof faces, due to the silly and inefficient panel dimensions. That means that, in 9 years, the panels efficiency decreased by (500-440)/500=12%.
(disregarded by manufacturers of solar panels and (in)efficiency “experts” (- “drips under pressure”) ) hip roof designed buildings, do exist.
So, the only efficient shapes for PV panels for household rooftop PV systems, is right-angled triangles, with sides 50cm long. Optimisation.