ET Solar solar panels reviews

ET Solar

ET Solar is a Chinese panel manufacturer that was founded in 2005. They produce tier one solar panels with a 15 year product warranty and 25 year performance warranty.

While ET Solar did have an Australian office, they no longer list it on their contacts page and when I tried to ring them I found their number had been disconnected, so it appears they no longer have an Australian office. 

If a company does not have an Australian office, then whoever imports the solar panels is responsible for their warranties. 

ET Solar Is A Mid-Sized Solar Manufacturer

While ET Solar was founded in 2005 and, according to them, has over 3,000 employees, it hasn’t expanded to become one of the giants that dominate the solar panel manufacturing industry.

ET Solar claims to have reached 1 gigawatt of panel manufacturing at the end of 2011. In addition they also claim to have produced a total of 5 gigwatts of panels since 2005. So while they may have reached 1 gigawatt of manufacturing capacity in 2011, their capacity does not appear to have increased since then.

ET Solar Is Vertically Integrated

ET Solar is vertically integrated, which means they generally produce their own silicon ingots and cut it into the wafers used to make solar cells without needing to rely on other suppliers. This makes them less vulnerable to supply disruptions. It may also give quality control advantages, but if there is a silicon ingot or wafer manufacturer out there that can’t produce consistent quality at this point in time, they need to move into a business that is less demanding such as bubble wrap production.

Company Location

ET Solar has its headquarters in Nanjing, which is 300 km west of Shanghai. The city is probably better known to English speakers as Nanking and tragically is known for atrocities committed there by Japanese forces during World War II.

With a population of 8.2 million, Nanjing is China’s 11th largest city and is famous for being unbearable in summer and is locally known as one of the three furnace cities of the Yangtze River Valley. This may or may not be a factor in their trying to beat global warming by producing solar panels.

Company Leadership

ET Solar’s website describes their leadership as:

“Young and experienced, ambitious and conscientious, innovative and hard headed, flexible and decisive.”

I can’t decide if this means their leadership is fantastic or whoever wrote their site is taking a subtle dig at them by pairing adjectives that cancel out to zero.

Because English language sites by Chinese companies are generally not known for their subtlety, I'll go with it meaning they’re fantastic.

Advanced Technological Boasting

On their website ET Solar likes to boast about their high technology and advanced automation. But this makes me wonder why they have 3,000 employees, because there are other companies have lower employee to solar panel production ratios. Surely they should have fewer employees if their automation is really advanced?

But those employees might be doing other things than just manufacturing panels. For example, they are heavily involved in project development, which is the construction of solar farms. Also, it may be due to ET Solar being more vertically integrated than the average panel manufacturer.

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish

On their website, ET Solar states they are:

“...freed from red ocean competition and is able to establish differentiated advantages in the blue ocean.”

This sounds like it might be some kind of direct translation of a Chinese saying, but it’s far worse than that. It’s corporatese and from a book on management that was a massive hit in China. The red fish, blue fish gibberish is business consultant speak for them claiming they will avoid engaging in bloody competition with other companies which turns the ocean red, and instead they will use advanced technology to ensure they have no competition. It's a great idea, provided they can out compete the dozens of other companies attempting to do the same thing.

ET Solar Panels And Corrosion Resistance

Looking at the datasheets for ET Solar panels, I see a number of them do not state they are certified as meeting the IEC 61701 standard for corrosion resistance. Oddly enough this includes their Elite Black Mono panel, but not its twin, the non-black Elite Mono panel.

This may have been an oversight, but if you live within 200m of the ocean, I would definitely check that any ET solar panels you install are certified as corrosion resistant.

ET Solar Panel Efficiency

ET Solar has a variety of panels they refer to as “mainstream modules”. These have efficiencies of up to respectable 17.8%.

They Have A Cell-String Optimised Panel

For solar installations that don't use microinverters, which is most of them, a single poorly performing panel can bring down the performance of others that are on the same electrical cable, known as a string. To get around this problem a variety of companies produce smart panels that have electronics that optimize their performance and make sure one panel never pulls down the performance of others.

ET has produced the ET-P660 series of panels that optimise individual cells-strings within a panel, similar to technology used by Maxim Integrated. This makes the panels more resistant to the effects of dirt and shading give great flexibility in the directions they can face. These panels are up to 16.6% efficient but their optimisation may boost their output by 5-15%, depending on circumstances.

ET Solar Has An AC Panel With Built In Microinverter

Et Solar produces a solar panel with a built in microinverter they call the ET AC Module. These panels can have up to 270 watts of solar cells and a 250 watt microinverter that will change the DC current the solar panel produces into the AC current that homes use.

Impressive Result in Photon 2013 Outdoor Test

Photon Laboratory is an independent testing organisation and in 2013 an ET Solar panel came third out of 176 in their outdoor module yield measurement test.

This doesn’t mean all of ET Solar’s panels will perform this well, but it is a good sign.