Finn's JA Solar Panels Review & Verdict
Finn Peacock has been a Chartered Electrical Engineer since 1998, and is ex-CSIRO
Cheap, reliable, and well-supported in Australia. Nothing to get excited about and nothing to complain about. A low-risk option for the budget-conscious.
JA Solar Panels: Pros & Cons
- Well established
- Responsive local support
- Competitive specification
- Performance warranty of 30 years with their Deep Blue 4.0 panels having a very low rate of permitted deterioration
- As used by SA Water for large-scale farms supporting local water infrastructure
- Our in-house installer, Anthony, bought some...
- Product warranty is 12 years and shorter than the 25 or 30 years offered by many other manufacturers
About JA Solar
JA Solar is a giant manufacturer of solar panels. In September 2024 they said they expected to have over 100GW of panel manufacturing capacity by the end of the year. While not the largest panel manufacturer in the world, they aren't far off it.
They have concentrated on producing low-cost but reliable panels. The 12-year product warranties they provide are less than the 15 to 25 years of most panels we recommend. However, because they are reliable, well-supported in Australia, and good value for money SolarQuotes has no problem recommending them.
While JA Solar is a giant company, its panels are rarely used on Australian roofs. This is because they focus on providing panels for solar farms. Most of theirs are large and all are bifacial. This means they can make use of light that hits both their front and rear. This provides no advantage to panels in a typical rooftop installation, which are mounted on rails only centimetres above the roof surface.
Company History
JA Solar was founded in 2005 by Jin Baofang. I read some interesting stories about this billionaire in the past, but they seem to have been scrubbed from the internet so I can't back them up. But trust me, they were all good. Or at least good as in amusing.
This internet scrubbing may have had something to do with his detention by the Chinese government towards the end of 2020 on unspecified charges. But these days he's back running JA Solar.
Jin Baofeng got his start in solar in 1996, producing monosilicon with three small crucibles. Nine years later he created JA Solar which soon made him a billionaire.
In 2017 the company began the mass production of bifacial panels with a glass sheet on the front and back and solar cells sandwiched inside.
The company strategy is referred to as "One body, two wings" and it probably sounds better in Chinese. The body refers to the production of silicon and solar panels, while the wings refer to the production of other products required by solar farms and their construction and commissioning.
JA Solar Production
JA Solar shipped 57 gigawatts (GW) of solar panels in 2023 with 48% being exported from China. The figure for 2024 is expected to be modestly higher.
JA Solar produces its own silicon ingots, which it cuts into wafers to make solar cells. This makes it a vertically integrated company involved in the production of all the major solar panel components.
Production Locations
Most of JA Solar's production occurs in China, where they have multiple factories. They also produce panels in Malaysia, Vietnam, and Phoenix, Arizona. They plan to build capacity in India, but they've been planning this for a while and nothing much seems to happen.
JA Panels -- All Bifacial
JA currently produces 11 different panels. All of them are bifacial and called Deep Blue. The latest ones are called Deep Blue 4.0 and the slightly older ones are Deep Blue 3.0. All are 1.13m wide and most are over 2.27m long. Four are around 1.72m in length, which is a more convenient size to install on roofs, but only one of these is part of the latest Deep Blue 4.0 series.
With most rooftop solar, the panels are installed only a few cm above the roof surface. This means very little light can get in from the sides and hit the rear of the panel, so having bifacial panels gives no significant difference in output.
Bifacial panels don't give any increase in output worth worrying about when used for normal rooftop solar. This is because the panels are only cm above the surface of the roof, so very little light can get in from the sides and hit the rear of the panel. But using bifacial panels doesn't create any problems and they're fine for normal rooftop use.
Bifacial Panels Suitable For Tilt Frames
While bifacial panels won't provide any significant increase in output normal rooftop solar, if tilt frames are used they will allow light to hit them from behind and increase output. On a typical roof, this increase may be under 10%. But on a reflective white membrane roof it could result in a 27% increase. However, this is only likely to be achieved in a close-to-ideal situation and requires keeping the roof clean.
While the extra cost, clutter, and complexity of tilt frames mean they're rarely used for residential solar these days if they are used, it makes sense to use bifacial panels.
Panel Efficiency
Solar panel efficiency is the percentage of sunlight energy converted into electrical energy. JA Solar panels have efficiencies which ranges from 21% to 23.4%. Their Deep Blue 4.0 series is from 21.8% to 23.4% efficient, so I'm happy to consider nearly all of them as being "high efficiency".
Heat Resistance
Solar panel efficiency is reduced by heat. All JA Solar Deep Blue 4.0 panels lose around 0.29% efficiency for each degree the temperature is over 25°C. This means when they're 45°C they'll only produce 94.2% as much power as at 25°C. This isn't bad, but isn't exceptional for modern, good quality, panels.
The older Deep Blue 3.0 aren't quite as good at resisting heat and lose 0.35% efficiency for each degree over 25°C. So at 45°C they'll produce 93% as much as at 25°C.
Warranties
Solar panels come with two warranties:
- Product warranties: These cover defects in materials and construction.
- Performance warranties: These promise the panel won't lose more than a set amount of capacity each year.
JA Solar product warranties are for 12 years. This isn't very long these days, and many manufacturers now offer 25 or 30 year product warranties.
The standard length of a performance warranty is 25 years but, like nearly all bifacial panels, JA Solar panels have a 30-year performance warranty. For their Deep Blue 4.0 panels it promises they'll lose no more than 1% of capacity in the first year and no more than 0.4% in each subsequent year. So after 30 years, they'll have a minimum of 84.7% of their original capacity. This is very good, but not exceptional for quality modern panels.
The performance warranty for the older Deep Blue 3.0 panels isn't as good. It allows a 2% loss of capacity in the first and then either 0.45% or 0.55% in each subsequent year, depending on panel.
Making A Warranty Claim
If you need to make a warranty claim, you should first contact your installer. But if they are no longer around, you can contact JA Solar directly.
JA Solar Sydney Office: (02) 8912 2165
Financial Status
Having panels with a 12-year product warranty and a 30-year performance warranty won't do you any good if the company that made them is no longer around. While there is no guarantee any company will still be around 12 to 30 years from now, the good news is JA Solar's current financial position appears reasonably secure. In the first quarter of 2023, PV Tech placed them in the top category of their PV ModuleTech bankability report. This means they think they are one of the solar panel manufacturers least likely to suffer financial difficulties or go bankrupt.
Recommendation
While JA Solar doesn't offer as long a product warranty as many other panel manufacturers, they have demonstrated reliability under Australian conditions, so SolarQuotes has no problem recommending them. I would be fine with having them installed on my roof.
JA Solar has 3 solar panels in our database
Filter by:
JA Solar Reviews (676)
Show Most Relevant reviews from All time
- 5 star 551
- 4 star 111
- 3 star 7
- 2 star 1
- 1 star 6
View Timeline
06 August 2024
06 April 2023
An incentive was offered by Energy Stuff for this review. Learn more here.
16 March 2023
02 July 2021
10 August 2020
19 March 2018
22 July 2024
System works fine, just looks somewhat odd.
03 July 2024
29 January 2024
23 December 2023
An incentive was offered by Energy Stuff for this review. Learn more here.
26 August 2023
24 June 2023
07 March 2023
30 August 2022
28 March 2022
02 January 2022
06 August 2021
24 September 2020
14 September 2020
29 June 2020
Not a system problem though, just needs the government too wake up.
26 June 2020
18 January 2020
09 January 2020
10 December 2019
19 June 2019
06 September 2017
08 October 2015
12 December 2024
28 November 2024
13 November 2024
13 November 2024
07 November 2024
15 October 2024