Trina solar panels review, from an installer

What it is

The Vertex S+ is Trina's dual glass N type i-TOPCon module, 475W, 96 half cells, black frame. Trina are one of the largest and longest running panel manufacturers in the world, which matters more for a 25 year product than it does for most purchases.

For scale, a 13.3 kW array of these is twenty eight panels on the roof. That is the size we size most of our packages around.

There is nothing exotic about it and that is the point. It is the sensible middle of the range and there is nothing about it we have to apologise for.

Dual glass, and what it prevents

This is the specification worth understanding, because it is the one that actually addresses a Queensland problem.

A conventional panel has glass on the front and a plastic backsheet on the rear. That backsheet is the part that ages. Heat, humidity and UV work on it for years, and when it eventually degrades you get moisture ingress, delamination and in the worst cases a safety issue rather than just a performance one.

The Vertex S+ has glass on the back as well as the front. There is no plastic layer to break down. On the Sunshine Coast, where panels sit in heat and humidity year round and often within reach of salt air, that removes the component most likely to give trouble in the back half of the panel's life.

It is not a performance feature and nobody sells it hard, which is exactly why it is worth pointing at. It is a longevity feature, and longevity is what you are actually buying with a 25 year product.

N type cells and the heat problem

Queensland's problem is not light, it is temperature. A panel's output drops as it gets hotter, and a dark roof in February is a long way from the 25 degrees the nameplate rating is measured at.

N type i-TOPCon cells hold their output better at high temperature than the older P type cells they replaced. That is the difference that shows up in your actual generation on the days you most want the air conditioning running.

All three of the panels we install are N type, so this is not an advantage only the Trina has. It is a reason not to buy a cheap P type panel to save a little money, because you will pay it back in lost summer generation for twenty five years.

The 30 year warranty, and a boring advantage

The product warranty is 25 years and the performance warranty is 30 years. That performance figure is five years longer than the Australian made Tindo we position above it, which surprises people and is worth knowing before you assume the premium panel wins on every measure.

The advantage nobody mentions is availability. Trina make these in volume, which means the panel is rarely the thing holding up an installation date.

That sounds like a trivial point until your install slips three weeks because a boutique panel is on a boat. We size every package around this module partly because we can actually get it, and a system on the roof in March generating power beats a slightly better system in May.

Where it suits, and where it does not

It suits almost everyone. If you want a proven panel from a very large manufacturer, with a 30 year performance warranty and dual glass construction that suits the coastal climate, and you are not fussed about where it was made, this is the one we will quote you by default.

It suits you less if buying Australian made matters to you, or if you want warranty claims handled by a company on Australian time. That is the Tindo, and the difference is who answers the phone in year eleven rather than the warranty length.

It suits you less if part of your roof sits in shade for some of the day. On a conventional panel, shade across one part of it switches out a whole section of the module. That is the job of the Aiko, the third panel in our range, which handles shade inside the cell instead.

The full specification sits on our Trina Vertex S+ page, and how long solar panels actually last covers what a 30 year performance warranty really promises.

Common questions