Comparative analysis of half-cut monofacial monocrystalline solar panel and traditional full-cell monofacial monocrystalline solar panel

Abstract

Despite the theoretical benefits of the half-cut cells over the traditional full-cell monocrystalline panel, there is limited comparative analysis showing its power output by comparing voltage, current, efficiency and other parameters between both panels under varying sunlight conditions; thus this research aimed to evaluate and compare the performance of both panel technologies in terms of voltage, current, and power output at different times of the day, while also considering environmental factors such as temperature, humidity, and solar irradiance. An experimental research design was adopted using two 400 W solar panels with measurements taken simultaneously at 2.5 h intervals between 10:00 am and 3:00 pm for a period of three months under two scenarios—without shading and with shading. The findings revealed that while the traditional panels consistently produced higher voltage values, the half-cut panels generated significantly higher current outputs resulting in greater overall power generation. Statistical analysis including percentage variance, and standard deviation reveal that the energy yield of the half cut is slightly higher than that of the full cut; but the Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) carried out to deepen the result of the statistical analysis depict that there is no significant difference in the power generation of both technologies under the ‘without shading’ scenario. However, from the ANOVA, a significant difference under the ‘with shading’ scenario with the half-cut panels having a higher power generation thus confirming the superior energy yield and performance stability of the half-cut panels under all environmental conditions including shading when compared to their traditional full-cell counterpart.