SolarCity says new panel will be industry's most efficient

By Nichola Groom
Oct 2 (Reuters) - SolarCity Corp SCTY.O on Friday said it
had built a solar panel that is the most efficient in the
industry at transforming sunlight into electricity.
The top U.S. solar installer, which expanded into
manufacturing through its acquisition of Silevo last year, will
make the panels at a major solar panel factory it is building in
Buffalo, New York. That facility will open in 2017.
SolarCity, which is backed by Tesla Motors Inc TSLA.O
founder Elon Musk, has increasingly moved beyond its primary
business of installing solar panels in an effort to keep driving
down the cost of going solar.
Making its own panels will bring system costs down by 15 to
20 cents a watt, said Chief Executive Lyndon Rive, who added
that Friday's announcement should assuage concerns about the
company's foray into a new line of business.
"Now that we are going to be making the best module in the
world hopefully that addresses anyone's skepticism," Rive said
in an interview.
Third-party testing measured the SolarCity panel's
efficiency at 22.04 percent, the company said. SunPower Corp
SPWR.O , a U.S. panel manufacturer that has long made the most
efficient panels in the industry, is currently producing modules
with 21.5 percent efficiency on a mass scale.
SolarCity is currently producing its panels at a 100
megawatt pilot facility in Fremont, California, near Tesla's
factory. SolarCity's $750 million Buffalo facility will
ultimately have ten times that capacity.
Still, fast-growing SolarCity will never make enough panels
to fulfill its installation needs, Rive said. Currently most of
the panels SolarCity installs are made in China by companies
including Canadian Solar CSIQ.O , Trina Solar TSL.N and
Yingli Green Energy YGE.N , among others.
Because the SolarCity panels are very efficient, they will
be used in locations where they work best, such as those with
space constraints. Customers will not be able to choose the
in-house panel over another brand, Rive said.