Hi LillianB, welcome to the forums!
Have to admit... When I hear "survival" and "blanket" I think of these, but you can get them for about 50 cents to $1 in bulk.
| Since I didn't know what a solar blanket was I google it... found pool warmers next:
 |
But then...
Kept Googling and found the $
2000 "Solar blanket bug out package":
If this is what it is... $2000 for 215 watts and a 20 amp MPPT then it is
extremely pricey.
CIGs (essentially military-grade flexible panels) are available for less now. Will's CIGs video is
here. As a cost comparison with the CIGS panel Will tested, 240 Watts (3 x 80W panels) would be $780 and $100 for an MPPT. So less than half the price.
Will says:
With everything said about CIGS, I would still go with glass panels. They are dirt cheap! It is hard to beat them.
If glass panels are too heavy/bulky you might also think about Flexible MonoCrystalline panels. Will still prefers CIGs over them:
But if you need flex panels, it is worth every penny to go with CIGS versus those cheap silicon cell flex panels. Even if the warranty is good, you will have to take your whole array apart in a year or so when the output is reduced.
CIGs is about $3.23/W, flexible panels with a 25 year warranty are $1.89/W, and glass is $0.47/W-$1/W). I'm not sure what the warranty will be on a CIGs panel, but the annual degradation rate is supposed to be under .5%, so around ~88% at 25 years.
But I believe it depends on your use case.
If you just want something lightweight you can roll up to store and pull out for emergencies, flexible panels in storage shouldn't degrade like their counterparts in the sun, so it'll save you a bunch of $$.
In fact,
even if you leave them out in the sun the warranty guarantees them to be 80% efficient at 25 years. Most glass panels are around 90% after 25 years. But at those prices, you could just buy another panel and still come out ahead.
The new stuff has a 25-year warranty (see this
thread for more on them) similar to warranties on glass panels, but you have to be crazy-careful to get the "new" stuff as the "old" stuff under the same name will only last a few years out in the sun. The other problem is the new stuff is
new, no one has a lot of experience with them so they're somewhat of an unknown and the old ones were really really bad leaving a lot of distrust.
Disclosure: I don't own any flexible panels (yet) and obviously had no clue what a solar blanket even was! But, hope this helps! I'll also move the thread to the solar panels forum where hopefully other members can see and comment on it.
