Types of Crystalline silicon cells

Crystalline silicon solar cells come in two main types of Silicon cells:

1 – Monocrystalline
2 – Polycrystalline

Space Efficiency

Monocrystalline is generally more space efficient than polycrystalline.

One square meter of monocrystalline solar cells will generate around 190W
One square meter of polycrystalline solar cells will generate around 180W

Temperature Tolerance

Polycrystalline solar cells generally have a lower temperature coefficient that monocrystalline solar cells.

Lets say you have a 1kW of monocrystalline solar array on the same roof and side by side with a 1kW of polycrystalline array.

The monocrystalline array will be slightly smaller compared to the polycrystalline array as it is more space efficient.

However, the 1kW polycrystalline array will generally generate more electricity over the year when compared to the 1kW monocrystalline solar array because of its better temperature tolerance.

Cost

A monocrystalline solar cell usually costs more than a polycrystalline solar cell, however when assembled into a solar panel, the cost of the mono panel is roughly the same as the poly panel in $/Watt.

Aesthetics

A monocrystalline solar panel generally makes a nicer looking solar panel as It is black in colour where polycrystalline is dark blue in colour.

However, the colour of polycrystalline cells has darkened significantly the past few years and it is now looking a lot darker then it used to.

How They are Made

A monocrystalline rod is created by slowly pulling a monocrystalline silicon seed crystal out of melted polycrystalline silicon.

It physically looks like a grey 20cm round rod.

The rod gets cut into wafers and then the round wafers are trimmed to make them more square so they can be arranged nicely on a rectangular piece of glass.

To make polycrystalline wafers, molten silicon is poured into a cast where it cools and solidifies.

The rectangular block of silicon gets cut into 156mm square wafers so it can be arranged neatly on a rectangular piece of glass.

You can tell the difference between a mono and poly panel because of the darker colour of the mono cell, and also the mono cell generally are not perfectly square as they started off in life as a round wafer.