Compared to traditional, roof-mounted solar panels, flexible solar panels are lighter, more portable and easier to set up and dismantle – you can even do it yourself. Because of how thin and malleable flexible solar panels are, you can bend them around curved surfaces. This makes them ideal for camper vans, boats and homes with less conventional architecture.
Flexible solar panels are also more affordable than standard solar panels, although this comes at the expense of efficiency and durability, meaning these panels aren’t for everyone. Still, flexible solar panels are a cost-effective, climate-friendly way to generate electricity for your home or vehicle, reducing your reliance on the grid and saving you money on your energy bills.
Below, we’ll help you decide whether flexible solar panels are right for you by unpacking their main benefits and disadvantages and answering the most frequently asked questions.
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What is a flexible solar panel?
Flexible solar panels are made from ultra-thin photovoltaic layers which, when placed in a sunny environment, convert the sun’s light into clean, renewable energy to power your home.
These panels are lighter, more malleable and more adaptable than conventional solar panels, and their flexibility makes them suitable for a range of placements and use cases, such as producing green electricity to fuel a sustainable off-grid lifestyle in a caravan or motorhome.
But the real flexibility in this type of solar panel’s name is literal, as they’re designed to bend to fit the contours of the structure you place them on. Unlike traditional solar panels, which are rigid and must be placed on a flat base, flexible solar panels can wrap around curved surfaces. This could be the hull of your boat, the top of your van or the roof of a detached garage or shed on your property.
What is a semi-flexible solar panel?
A semi-flexible solar panel is somewhere between a flexible solar panel and the rigid, higher-efficiency solar panels you’re more likely to see on the roofs of UK homes.
Semi-flexible solar panels will flex and conform to curved contours without cracking or breaking, but, as their name suggests, not to the same extent as fully flexible solar panels. This means that while semi-flexible solar panels are ideal for flat or gently-curving surfaces, they won’t be suitable for ones with more pronounced curvature.
Benefits of flexible solar panels
Flexible solar panels are light, portable and easy to install and transport – not to mention more affordable than conventional roof-mounted solar arrays.
Let’s delve deeper into flexible solar panels’ key benefits for your home.
Lightweight design
Flexible solar panels’ thin design doesn’t just give them their trademark flexibility – it also makes them one of the lightest solar panels on the market.
This makes solar panels more versatile and suitable for a wider array of use cases and environments than traditional, heavier solar panels. You can, for instance, install flexible solar panels on surfaces with less robust load-bearing capabilities (such as the roofs of vans and motorhomes) and on residential setups not designed to host solar panels like the roofs of guesthouses and outhouses.
Easily installable
Flexible solar panels’ malleable design means you won’t need heavy-duty mounting brackets to install them.
Unlike roof-mounted panels, which require the services of a Microgeneration Certification Scheme (MCS)-certified solar panel installer to fit, you can install some flexible solar panels yourself. While we don’t necessarily recommend this DIY approach – especially if you’re planning to take advantage of any of the UK’s solar panel grants – it does make the process easier for small-scale solar setups.