Anyone Used JASolar - PV panels?

[OffGridForGood]

I am considering adding some PV to my current set up, bifacials will work well.
If I use the same Canadian Solar 440's as my current set up, 6 new panels would be 2.64kW (yeah less in actual collection, I know)
If I buy these JA Solar 550W x 6 this is 3.3kW = 25% more Watts and in this case for lower cost.
Due to the winter situation we deal with, all my arrays tilt up to 60-65 degrees for winter time, and then tilt down to 30 degrees for summer -mostly to assist with snow clearing. The tilting frames and structure are a costly part of the build, and getting 25% more out of about the same frames/structure makes good sense for my situation. These panels are wider than the CS 440's, but this will not have much impact on the racking I use.
Also, since these will feed into my new MPP6048 #3 unit, I have 4000W and 145vDC limit per PV string input, these panels in a 2S-3P fit that quite nicely (100vDC & under 145vDC even with minus 30 winter temps, 3300W rated output<4000).
I see these 550W bifacials fitting my set up quite well, BUT!! - wondering if anyone else has used this Brand or know anything about them?
Spec sheet is attached. I know nothing about this company, does anyone know them? Tried out these panels? Words of wisdom or warning?

 

[Trkarl]

I bought 9 used 290 watt JA Solar panels from Santan in January. They regularly produce at or over their rating almost every day. I paid 1015.00 including shipping from Savannah, GA to Cape Coral, FL. So far I have nothing but good things to say about them.

 

[OffGridForGood]

I bought 9 used 290 watt JA Solar panels from Santan in January. They regularly produce at or over their rating almost every day. I paid 1015.00 including shipping from Savannah, GA to Cape Coral, FL. So far I have nothing but good things to say about them.

Thanks for taking a minute to reply Trkarl, good to hear these are working well for you.
You noted these are used, can I ask how old your panels are? Do you know what year they were fabricated?

 

[Trkarl]

I’m not sure of the year but they look almost new. They have a few scratches on the frames.

 

[Mjs]

Bought 21 JA 540 panels back in June. Working well for me.

 

[H2so4]

Hi offgridforgood.
Have just joined up and i am looking for advice. I am in canada as well. When you were looking for equipment had you looked at getting panels etc directly from China?

 

[OffGridForGood]

Hi offgridforgood.
Have just joined up and i am looking for advice. I am in canada as well. When you were looking for equipment had you looked at getting panels etc directly from China?

Not panels, no. I bought inverters from Maximumsolar (MPP's N.American distributor) and I bought cells from Amy in China Alibaba. And small parts from Aliexpress.
I was concerned that something as fragile as a (glass) PV panel would be too risky/likely to be damaged and what would be my recourse?
I ordered my panels from Solar Parts Store (Orangeville) and in fact one panel arrived broken. They promptly replaced the panel no issues no charge no delay.
I have read on this forum some members have ordered a full case of PV panels from China, and likely these full (30 -ish) Panels will be well packaged in a full enclosed crate for shipping, which may be ok but I didn't go this way. I bought panels 6-8 at a time only, not in case lots. Cost more for shipping this way, but it allowed me to follow a plan of limited investment over a period of a few years to get to what you now see in my signiture block.
Maybe not the way to get there for everyone, but has served me well to learn and do at a pace that is not too hard on me or the pocket book.
If interested, you can read about my journey (so far) here:

diysolarforum.com/threads/a-four-year-plan-in-stages-going-pv-off-grid.44185/

 

[OffGridForGood]

Bought 21 JA 540 panels back in June. Working well for me.

21 panels ! nice.
Thanks for the info, I had not heard of JA until recently so it is great to hear from some forum members on their experiances with this brand.

 

[SeaGal]

If I use the same Canadian Solar 440's as my current set up, 6 new panels would be 2.64kW (yeah less in actual collection, I know)
If I buy these JA Solar 550W x 6 this is 3.3kW = 25% more Watts and in this case for lower cost...
...
... getting 25% more out of about the same frames/structure makes good sense for my situation.

Maybe I'm having a blonde moment, but 25% gains seems rather a lot for "about the same frame". Surely the output power of a panel is only a factor of size of the panel multiplied by its efficiency - I don't recall panels getting 25% improvements of efficiency in the last year or two.

Looking at the spec sheets (and guessing which CS panels you have) it would appear the the JA Solar ones are 15% larger than the CS ones (both wider and quite a bit longer), and the efficiency has gone up to 21.3 vs. 19.7 which is an 8% increase.

So, you would be getting 8% improvement from better efficiency and then another 15% more because the panels are physically bigger. Added together that should give you a 24% overall increase, but only 8% of that is from the panels performance.

 

[OffGridForGood]

Maybe I'm having a blonde moment, but 25% gains seems rather a lot for "about the same frame". Surely the output power of a panel is only a factor of size of the panel multiplied by its efficiency - I don't recall panels getting 25% improvements of efficiency in the last year or two.

Looking at the spec sheets (and guessing which CS panels you have) it would appear the the JA Solar ones are 15% larger than the CS ones (both wider and quite a bit longer), and the efficiency has gone up to 21.3 vs. 19.7 which is an 8% increase.

So, you would be getting 8% improvement from better efficiency and then another 15% more because the panels are physically bigger. Added together that should give you a 24% overall increase, but only 8% of that is from the panels performance.

When I say "frame" I mean the support rail frames are about the same for either PV option, not the frame around the PV panels that are from the factory. LOL. yeah maybe more like 24% difference. The 550W panels are a bit wider than the CS 440 Bifacials I am using now.

 

[OffGridForGood]

I waited on the purchase, but did buy 6 JA 550W PV panels. These arrived a week ago, and I have been working on the weekends to build the tilt frames for two rows of three panels - landscape orientation - on the West Roof.
This was something I considered in year one, but after a temporary set up (my one cracked 440W panel from my first shipment makes a great test panel, hooked up to a 12v mobile system) the temporary set up gave disapointing results with one panel laying parallel to roof or tilted up on the West roof and so I abandoned that idea.
Until I filled all the south facing roof areas with PV that is...time to revisit that empty West area.

So last fall, I again set up the spare PV panel to test out the West roof, but this time with a slightly different approach: I set the test panel up on the West roof but on a temporary wooden frame tilting South. I made the frame so it could be set 35-degrees from horizontal, or 72 degrees from horizontal (nearly vert.) the hinge line is parallel to a 4:12 pitch metal roof, tilted South. ie the tilting is 90-degrees to the roof slope.
Since this was set up in September, I got some late summer data. Then I tilted it up to 72-degrees at end of October and left it there for most of the Winter. I compared the test panel to the main arrays (ie one 440 should provide close to 1/6th of a 2s-3p South array) and the results were better than I expected. So I ordered in the set of 6 550w JA panels.
Last weekend I cut unistrut pieces for the first tilt frame. Now I just need to put it up there, and build a second one.
If it works well, I have enough space on the west roof to install four rows, with space between them to avoid self-shading in December