So, it&#;s time for a roof replacement, and you&#;re ready to change your home for the better with higher energy efficiency.

Check now

Utilizing renewable energy is one of the best ways to live an eco-friendly life, and solar energy is an ample resource in the United States. Did you know that you can add solar panels to your residential roof and reap the benefits of renewable energy?

That&#;s right, if your roof is compatible with solar panels, you can be on your way to living a more environmentally-friendly life. There are two different kinds of solar panels: black and blue. Each one offers different benefits.

Not sure which type of solar panel is best for your home? Let&#;s explore the pros and cons of the two main options.

What Are Black Solar Panels?

The difference between black and blue solar panels is more a matter of manufacturing than color. Although, the two options do have a distinct color difference.

Black solar panels are monocrystalline panels that appear black in color. Monocrystalline panels are made from a single large silicon crystal with high quality. The silicon used has an extremely high level of purity. Silicon is a non-metallic element used in solar panels because it has an impressive ability to absorb wavelengths of light and produce an electric charge.

• Fun fact: The process of combining silicon into one high-quality crystal is called the Czochralski process, named after Polish scientist Jan Czochralski who invented the method in . &#;

How Are Black Solar Panels Made?

The Czochralski method creates black solar panels by following these steps:

1. A silicon crystal seed is placed in a vessel of molten silicon.
2. The silicon crystal seed is slowly drawn out with the molten silicon and forms a block of solid crystal silicon.
3. The silicon block is cut into fine silicon &#;wafers,&#; which are used as solar cells in energy production.

The process of making a single-crystal black cell is more complicated than creating blue cells with multiple crystals. Unfortunately, a portion of pure silicon gets discarded in the production of black solar cells. This is because the silicon wafers must be cut in a specific way to achieve the optimal cell shape.

What Are Blue Solar Panels?

Blue solar panels are different from black panels in that, yes, they are blue, but instead of a single individual crystal, blue solar panels are polycrystalline panels. &#;Poly-&#; means &#;multiple,&#; and blue solar panels are created from more than one raw silicon crystal. The difference is that black solar panels are made from one individual crystal.

• Fun fact: About 90% of all solar panels on the market are blue polycrystalline solar panels. &#;&#;

How Are Blue Solar Panels Constructed?

The process of making blue solar panels is incredibly similar to black panels. The difference starts right at the beginning. The first step of creating black solar panels is to draw up a silicon crystal seed. Blue solar panels skip this step.

Instead, the silicon crystals are poured into the vessel and are allowed to cool and form polycrystalline silicon cells. This step forms characteristic grains on the edges of the blue solar cells.

The blue hue is achieved through the way the polycrystalline cells reflect light and the anti-reflective coating that gets applied.

Pros and Cons of Each Type

There is a case to be made for both black and blue solar panels. Each type offers different advantages and disadvantages for homeowners. However, ultimately, any solar panel is better than no solar panel.

Black Solar Panels: Pros

Black solar panels are becoming more popular, and it&#;s easy to see why. They offer many benefits that are appealing to homeowners, including:

• High energy efficiency
• Great performance in warm weather
• Absorbs more light

Higher Energy Efficiency

The crystals in a monocrystalline panel are aligned uniformly. This alignment makes black solar panels more energy efficient. You can generate the same amount of energy with fewer black panels than blue.

Not to mention, since you don&#;t need as many black solar panels, they also take up less space on your roof. Many homeowners find their sleek design and space-saving nature to be aesthetically pleasing.

Performs Better in Warm Weather

All solar cells produce less electricity when temperatures rise. However, if you live in a warmer climate, black solar panels might be more appealing because they experience less energy degradation in warm weather compared to blue panels.

Absorbs More Light

All black materials absorb more of the sun&#;s rays, whether it be a black t-shirt or black asphalt pavement. The same goes for black solar panels. Due to their color and construction, black panels absorb more of the sun&#;s rays and generate more power than blue panels. They also tend to perform better in low-light conditions.

Black Solar Panels: Cons

While black solar panels offer many advantages, they also have a few drawbacks that may be deal-breakers for homeowners, such as:

• Higher costs
• Wasted materials

Higher Costs

Black solar panels only make up 10% of all solar panels on the market. Because of their scarcity and more complex manufacturing process, black panels cost up to 25% more than blue panels.

You will get efficient and thoughtful service from 潞安.

For homeowners on a tight budget, this alone can be enough to sway them towards blue panels. However, many people find that the impressive energy performance from black panels makes them worth the price.

Wastes Material During Production

During the production of monocrystalline cells for black solar panels, a large amount of silicon ends up getting wasted. This is because silicon wafers are cut off from all four sides to create the desired shape of the cells. Unfortunately, this waste is not eco-friendly, which can be a deterrent for some prospective buyers.

Blue Solar Panels: Pros

Blue solar panels are produced in much higher numbers, and most homes and businesses across the country utilize blue panels. Here are some of their benefits:

• Affordable
• Easy to produce
• Minimal waste

More Affordable

It costs far less to produce polycrystalline cells for blue solar panels than monocrystalline cells for black panels. Their cheaper upfront and installation costs make them more accessible for many homeowners across the county.

Easier to Produce

The lower cost of blue solar panels relates directly to the easier production process of polycrystalline solar cells. Since these panels are easier to produce, they are also easier to repair. As the primary solar panel in the United States, the production process has been mastered, and repairs are fast and easy.

Less Waste in Manufacturing

Since polycrystalline cells don&#;t require any shaping, silicon wafers don&#;t need to be cut off on each side. While the shaping process for black solar panels generates a lot of silicon waste, hardly any waste is produced when manufacturing blue panels. This is an important consideration for homeowners who care deeply about their ecological footprint.

Blue Solar Panels: Cons

Even though blue solar panels are very popular, they do have a few drawbacks worth considering.

• Lower energy efficiency
• Not as aesthetically pleasing

Less Energy Efficient

It&#;s simply hard to beat the impressive energy efficiency of black solar panels. Blue solar panels absorb less light and don&#;t perform as well in warm weather or low-light as their black counterparts. So while they may be more affordable, they produce less energy.

Less Aesthetically Pleasing

Many homeowners find the sleek appearance of black solar panels to be more pleasing to the eye. Depending on the color of your home, blue solar panels may stand out more in a way some people don&#;t enjoy. Blue solar panels have white stripes throughout, so they don&#;t have a sleek, simple appearance.

Are Black or Blue Solar Panels Best for Your Home?

Depending on your priorities, you may lean one way or another. Homeowners on a budget may be more drawn to blue panels, while homeowners who want the best energy efficiency may gravitate towards black panels. Remember: You can&#;t really go wrong with choosing a type of solar panel because going solar in any capacity is always a wonderful decision for our environment.

Ready to take the plunge and install solar panels on your roof? Secured Roofing & Restoration is one of the best roofing companies for the job. Not all roofers work with solar panels, but we are always eager to install them for our clients. Contact us today to learn more.

Are Solar Panels Really Black? And What Does That Have to Do With the Climate Debate?

October 20,

Nathan Myhrvold is a polymath&#;s polymath, the former chief technology officer at Microsoft who, by the time he was 23, had earned, primarily at UCLA and Princeton, a bachelor&#;s degree (mathematics), two master&#;s degrees (geophysics/space physics and mathematical economics), and a Ph.D. (mathematical physics). He is co-founder of Intellectual Ventures, a firm comprising many other scientists, including climate scientists, whose counterintuitive views on global warming and its possible solutions are explored in the final chapter of SuperFreakonomics. A climate-activist blogger didn&#;t like the chapter, accusing Levitt and Dubner of chicanery (a charge that Dubner rebuffed here) and accusing Myhrvold of not understanding the physics behind solar power. Oops. Below you can read Myhrvold&#;s views on the tenor of the global-warming debate in general and solar power in particular. Watch this space for further rebuttals of shouted claims of error and evil.
One of the saddest things for me about climate science is how political it has become. Science works by having an open dialog that ultimately converges on the truth, for the common benefit of everyone. Most scientific fields enjoy this free flow of ideas.
There are serious scientific and technological issues in studying our climate, how it responds to human-caused emission of greenhouse gases, and what the most effective solutions will be for global warming. But unfortunately, the policy implications are vast and there is a lot at stake in economic terms.
It seems inevitable that discussions of climate science would degenerate to being deeply politicized and polarized. Depending on which views are adopted, individuals, industries, and countries will gain or lose, which provides ample motive. Once people with a strong political or ideological bent latch onto an issue, it becomes hard to have a reasonable discussion; once you&#;re in a political mode, the focus in the discussion changes. Everything becomes an attempt to protect territory. Evidence and logic becomes secondary, used when advantageous and discarded when expedient. What should be a rational debate becomes a personal and venal brawl. Rational, scientific debate that could advance the common good gets usurped by personal attacks and counterattacks.
Political movements always have extremists &#; bitterly partisan true believers who attack anybody they feel threatens their movement. I&#;m sure you know the type, because his main talent is making himself heard. He doesn&#;t bother with making thoughtful arguments; instead, his technique is about shrill attacks in all directions, throwing a lot of issues up and hoping that one will stick or that the audience becomes confused by the chaos. These folks can be found at the fringe of every political movement, throughout all of history. Technology has amplified them in recent years. First with talk radio and then with cable TV, the extremists found larger and larger audiences.
The Internet provides the ultimate extremist platform. Every blogger can reach millions, and given the lack of scrutiny or review over content, there is little accountability. Indeed, the more over-the-top the discourse is the better &#; because it is entertaining. Ancient Romans watched gladiators in much the same way that we read angry bloggers.
That seems to be the case with Joe Romm, a blogger with strong views about global warming and what he calls &#;climate progress.&#; In a recent series of blog posts, Romm levels one baseless, bald charge after another. What provoked this? The best summary I&#;ve seen comes from a comment by DaveyNC to the Freakonomics blog which says:

No, no, no, no &#; you have committed apostasy; heresy! You are not allowed to speak of warming except in the most emotional, alarmist tones!
You are not allowed to follow an objective, skeptical line of reasoning in this matter. You are not allowed to consider whether or not it is cost-efficient or even possible to cease all carbon emissions; you simply must do it.

That pretty much sums it up, as far as I can tell. SuperFreakonomics dares to comment on climate issues in a manner that Romm sees as contrary to his agenda, so he sets out to smear the book and me as a figure in the book.
Romm&#;s method of attack is pretty simple. He takes as many statements as he can, interprets them &#; or misinterprets them in the worst possible way &#; and then subjects them to ridicule. As an example, he goes on and on about a comment that I made about how solar photovoltaic cells have a problem because they are black. Romm attacks me as if I think that this means that solar cells are bad. Yet that wasn&#;t the point in SuperFreakonomics at all. I am quoted in the book as follows:

As an example he points to solar power. &#;The problem with solar cells is that they&#;re black, because they are designed to absorb light from the sun. But only about 12 percent gets turned into electricity, and the rest is reradiated as heat &#; which contributes to global warming.

Although a widespread conversion to solar power might seem appealing, the reality is tricky. The energy consumed by building the thousands of new solar plants necessary to replace coal-burning and other power plants would create a huge long-term &#;warming debt,&#; as Myhrvold calls it.

&#;Eventually, we&#;d have a great carbon-free energy infrastructure, but only after making emissions and global warming worse every year until we&#;re done building out the solar plants, which could take 30 to 50 years.&#;

Please note that the quote says that solar could provide a &#;great carbon-free infrastructure.&#; That hardly makes me anti-solar-energy, now does it? But to a partisan like Romm, it&#;s better to ignore that line &#; so he does. He quotes somebody&#;s calculation arguing that over very long periods of time, solar cells save emissions. Well, of course they do. It&#;s so much easier to attack if you take things out of context.
Since this is at least partly a technical point, I will go to the trouble of explaining it further.
The point I was making to Dubner and Levitt is the following: when you build a solar plant it costs you energy. Lots of energy. Pacca and Horvath, in a study, found that the greenhouse gas emissions necessary to build a solar plant are about 2.75 times larger than the emissions from a coal plant of the same net power output (1.1 * 10^10 kg [editor&#;s note: numbers corrected from an earlier version] of CO2 to build the solar plant versus 4 * 10^9 kg of CO2 per year for coal). The numbers vary depending on the specific technology, but there are dozens of &#;Life Cycle Assessment&#; papers on solar photovoltaic cells that document a similar effect. So building the solar plant hurts global warming, at least during the construction period. Once you turn it on and are able to throttle back a coal plant because you get electricity from the solar cells, you gradually earn back the deficit through CO2 emissions that are saved. You need to operate the solar plant for at least 2.75 years before you break even versus the coal plant &#; at least versus CO2 emissions. This is very much like the old adage &#;you need to spend money to make money.&#; You need to &#;spend&#; some carbon emissions in order to create a carbon-free infrastructure which will ultimately yield a carbon emission &#;profit.&#;
Solar cells pretty much have to be &#;black&#; in the energetic side of the solar spectrum because they absorb sunlight! Of course no material is a perfect absorber, so when I say &#;black,&#; what I mean is very high absorption of light &#; 90 percent or more. Solar cells often have a bluish tint to them because they reflect a tiny bit more blue light than other colors, but that is small enough that it doesn&#;t matter for our purposes here.
Unfortunately, solar cells are not very efficient. Efficiencies of 9 percent to 13 percent are typical for current widely deployed technology. In the future that will change, and some laboratory examples are better, but this is what people deploy now. So for every watt of electricity they generate, current solar cells throw about 10 watts into the climate as heat. Some of this heat would have occurred anyway when the light was absorbed by the ground, but the most effective solar cell installations are in deserts where the albedo is pretty high (.4 to .5) and there is little cloud cover, so the solar cells cause a bunch of heating that would not have otherwise occurred. A typical coal power plant gives off about 2 watts of thermal heat for each watt generated, so the direct thermal heating from solar plants is likely to be as large or larger than that from coal plants.
The blackness of the solar cells factors into this start-up period. It&#;s well known in climate circles that the Earth&#;s albedo (how much light the surface reflects from the surface) is very important. It&#;s one of the reasons climate scientists are worried about Arctic sea ice melting; you go from a white surface that reflects 90 percent of the light (albedo 0.9) to ocean which is almost black and reflects 10 percent or less (for an albedo of 0.1). Climate studies published in peer-reviewed journals have shown that making roofs white would potentially be a great help against global warming. Other studies have looked at the impact of forests and logging on albedo. It is well known that albedo matters; this isn&#;t my private theory &#; it is mainstream climate science.
If you mount the solar cells on a rooftop or other surface that is already black or very dark, then it won&#;t make much of a difference. But, that&#;s just because the dark surface is already contributing to global warming (two wrongs don&#;t make a right!), and in any event, most large-scale solar installations are aimed at deserts or other terrain that has pretty high albedo. Romm makes a point of showing a photo of a solar-cell array on a roof, saying this refutes me. It doesn&#;t; my comments were clearly about large-scale deployment.
Over time, the CO2 savings from operating the solar plant (versus coal) would accumulate and be much larger that the warming caused by the &#;blackness.&#; It does not make solar cells bad in absolute terms; that&#;s why I say they are part of a &#;great carbon-free infrastructure&#; solution. But it does count against them and needs to be factored into the start-up costs. The effect would be to increase the time you need to run the plant before it breaks even.
The next part of the point is that we need to build out lots of renewable energy if it is going to make a difference. If we finish one plant today, it takes it three years to break even. Three years may not be the exact number, but let&#;s use it for simplicity. Next year we finish two more plants, and the next year we finish four more plants. Regardless of whether the numbers are 1, 2, 4, or some other sequence, we need to build the increasing amounts if we&#;re going to get a lot of plants built. But notice this: the three-year break-even times start to overlap and pile up as we build more and more plants.
The net result is that we may not get much CO2 benefit from the solar plants until we are past the rapid-growth phase of building out new plants. If we go hell-bent for leather in building solar plants for the next 50 years or so, it is entirely possible that we won&#;t see much small benefit for 30 to 50 years. In the long run, we still get benefit from the solar plants &#; lots of benefit (hence the &#;great carbon-free infrastructure&#;) &#; but in the near term, we may get little or no benefit. I say &#;may&#; because the details matter, and it is beyond the scope of what I can do here to calculate and explain them all; but the basic effect is that the time to get real benefit is delayed. A large part of this is due to the energy it takes to make them, and some is due to their blackness.
This is one of the dilemmas we face as a society. If we rapidly invest to make a new renewable-energy infrastructure, the very fact that we are making that investment can delay the onset of the benefit. It&#;s really hard to cut emissions quickly unless you cut consumption quickly, which society doesn&#;t seem very keen to do. So when people say &#;Let&#;s build out solar massively between now and in order to cut emissions,&#; I say yes, we&#;ll get the emissions cut, but in the short-term there may be less benefit than you think.
I made all of these points to Dubner and Levitt &#; both in person and in comments I made on a draft of the chapter. They incorporated as much as they felt they could while telling their story. SuperFreakonomics is not a technical book on the science of global warming; it is a popular book that treats these details at a high level. And besides, the three little paragraphs on solar isn&#;t the main point of the chapter &#; it is a small side-show that illustrated a point: that I feel many people are too optimistic about plans to solve global warming.
At the time I reviewed the chapter, I felt that, taken together as a whole, it is true to the spirit and flavor of what I said and believe. SuperFreakonomics did not explain all the numbers and details behind the comment on solar cells, but it is not supposed to. Instead, it touched on the highlights, including the key point that I am a fan of renewable energy sources (i.e. a &#;great carbon-free infrastructure&#;). I just think we need to understand the limitations accurately, particularly the short-term implications that most people neglect.
I am not anti-solar or anti-renewable energy. I am a co-inventor on several solar energy inventions, and my company has done a number of others with other inventors. We also have inventions in other forms of carbon-free energy production, energy conservation, and transmission. But Romm interprets my remarks as an &#;amateur takedown of solar&#; which he had to attack.
It&#;s taken me an awful lot of words to respond to just one of Romm&#;s many ravings, and I can&#;t tackle them all here. Sometimes he takes things out of context, as he does above. Other times he just blasts with crude broadsides of &#;sheer illogic,&#; &#;patent nonsense,&#; and the like without any argument at all. The unfortunate asymmetry is that it is much easier for him to throw stuff on the wall to see if it sticks than it is to carefully write on the wall with explanations and arguments.
Strangely, he gives comparatively little attention to the main point of the chapter, which is geoengineering. His primary objection is that it might cause some as-yet-unknown harm or unintended consequence. And I agree, which is why SuperFreakonomics says this:

Nor is he arguing for an immediate deployment of Budyko&#;s Blanket &#; but, rather, that technologies like it be researched and tested so they are ready to use if the worst climate predictions were to come true.

The way you deal with things you don&#;t know about is to research them! That&#;s what we are advocating. Through that process we would get a much better understanding of what, if any, harms would come from the geoengineering solution.
But before we get too worried about the potential harms, let&#;s get a grip. Geoengineering is proposed only as a last resort to try to reduce or cope with the even greater harms of global warming! The global-warming community has treated us to one scary scenario after another. Some are predicted by the science, some are extrapolations beyond current science, and some are not much better than wild guesses, but they could happen. Should we fail at cutting enough and those things occur, geoengineering might offer a better option.
It is very tempting to dismiss Romm as just another angry blogger. The Internet is full of them, and they blog on all sorts of issues. The problem here is not just about his posts and the SuperFreakonomics book; there is a larger issue at work.
This kind of attack makes it very difficult for people to suggest new ideas. I have thick enough skin to laugh it off when Romm attacks me, but plenty of people don&#;t. The politicization of science has a terrible impact on the unfettered discourse of ideas that is so important to making progress. This has been a big impediment to geoengineering. Serious climate scientists who are privately interested in geoengineering are loathe to discuss it publicly because they worry that somebody like Romm will attack and ridicule them if they do. Indeed, part of the reason I chose to work on geoengineering and chose to go public about it is to try to get the topic to be more widely discussed.
The point of the chapter in SuperFreakonomics is that geoengineering might be good insurance in case we don&#;t get global warming under control. Nobody can tell you today exactly how much CO2 we can emit without causing grave environmental harm. Nobody can tell you at what point the world will find the political will, the money, and the technological innovation to solve the problem. In a situation like that, can the world afford to turn its back on what could be a promising approach should we fail with our other efforts?
That&#;s the question that SuperFreakonomics asks, and that is the question on which we should be focused.

Contact us to discuss your requirements of full black solar panels. Our experienced sales team can help you identify the options that best suit your needs.