{"id":40900,"date":"2020-07-13T17:17:56","date_gmt":"2020-07-13T06:47:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/?p=40900"},"modified":"2025-09-04T10:59:48","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T01:29:48","slug":"leapton-solar-panels-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/leapton-solar-panels-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Leapton Solar Panels Review: Tier 1 Panels Made In China By Japanese Company"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Leapton

Recently we’ve had a number of calls from Australians who believe Leapton panels are made in Japan. Just to be clear: Leapton solar panels are made in China.<\/p><\/div>\r\n

Update August 12, 2022.<\/strong> There has been some confusion regarding Leapton’s Australian presence, support and warranty services. Find out what’s happening here<\/a>; including new support and warranty contact information.<\/em><\/p>\r\n

Update 9th of March 2021: <\/strong><\/em> Leapton Solar recently opened an office in Australia and their phone number is 1800 717 636.\u00a0 They told me they can handle warranty claims for all Leapton panels in Australia.\u00a0 (If you you need to make a warranty claim first get in touch with your installer.\u00a0 But if they’re no longer around you can contact Leapton directly.)<\/em><\/p>\r\n

This article is about Leapton Solar panels.\u00a0 Because this company is headquartered in Japan I’d like to give them a big…<\/p>\r\n

\r\n

Konnichiwa!<\/strong><\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

But since they’re actually made in China, perhaps that should be…<\/p>\r\n

\r\n

Ni Hao!<\/strong><\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

I suppose I could create a hybrid greeting for Leapton Solar, such as “Ni wa<\/strong>” or “Konnichi hao<\/strong>“, but that’s just likely to annoy people.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n

If you are considering getting Leapton solar panels, the good news is:<\/p>\r\n

    \r\n
  • They are tier one.<\/li>\r\n
  • They have a 15-year product warranty (UPDATE March 15, 2021<\/strong> – now 25 years<\/a> for panels installed in Australia)<\/li>\r\n
  • None of the installers I talked to who use them have had a single failed panel so far.<\/li>\r\n
  • They are competitively priced.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n

    The drawbacks are:<\/p>\r\n

      \r\n
    • They’ve only been installed for under two years in Australia.<\/li>\r\n
    • They don’t have an Australian office (May 5, 2021 update:<\/strong> now they do).\u00a0 This makes the company that imported them responsible for the manufacturer’s warranties.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n

      Last year Leapton shipped around 600 megawatts of solar panels, making them a small tier one producer.\u00a0 They have two panel factories in China and are building a third one there, so we may see more of them in the future. (Update May 5, 2021<\/strong> – Leapton’s annual production capacity has expanded to 2.15GW, with more to come).<\/p>\r\n

      If you’d like more details, read on.1<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\r\n

      What’s In A Name?\u00a0<\/h2>\r\n

      I don’t know why they decided to call their company Leapton but, according to their slogan, it might be because they intended to work overseas from the start:<\/p>\r\n

      \"\"<\/p>\r\n

      All I can say is, it’s lucky they’re a Japanese company because “Leap from China to the world” wouldn’t sound too auspicious at the moment.<\/p>\r\n

      I have no idea what the logo is supposed to be.\u00a0 It looks as though it was designed during a bit shortage and appears to be an off-kilter space invader<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n

      Company Locations<\/h2>\r\n

      Leapton Energy co. ltd.\u00a0 was founded in 2012 in Kobe<\/a> Japan and in the same year began operating in China.\u00a0 Kobe is famous for giving cows beer and massaging them to make Kobe beef<\/a>.\u00a0 It is also a fashion centre that is considered second only to Paris — but generally only by Japanese people.\u00a0 Those old enough to have played the first Pokemon as a child may recall it was hit by a disastrous earthquake<\/a> in 1995.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n

      Most of the stereotypes we have about Japan come from the Kanto region, which contains Tokyo, but Kobe is located lower down in Japan’s Kinki region<\/a>.\u00a0 But while Kanto usually dominates the popular imagination, there are still many who consider the whole of Japan to be Kinki.\u00a0 The Kinki area is also known as Kansai. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\r\n

      \"\"

      Kanto person on the left.\u00a0 Kansai person on right.\u00a0 The Kanto person wears a suit and tie while the more laid back Kansai person does not.\u00a0 The Kansai person has darker skin due to a sunnier climate and occasionally going outside.\u00a0 The Kanto person speaks the kind of Japanese you learn in school while the Kansai person speaks the kind of Japanese that makes you cry if you learned Japanese in school.\u00a0 Both have huge eyes and ears to allow them to detect Godzilla and other monsters at great distances.<\/p><\/div>\r\n

      Leapton Solar opened a Chinese factory in 2015 in Jiangyin city<\/a> in Jiangsu Province<\/a>.\u00a0 It’s able to produce up to 300 megawatts of solar panels a year.\u00a0 As far as I can tell, in the three years they existed before they started making stuff, Leapton acted as a project manager for solar farm construction.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n

      The next year they opened a Chinese factory to make solar racking.\u00a0 I haven’t heard of it being used in Australia.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n

      In 2017 Leapton built a second solar panel factory in Changshu, Jiangsu with 250-300 megawatts of annual capacity.\u00a0 According to the company website, it has the most advanced automated production line in the world.\u00a0 It must be truly amazing and capable of being in several locations at once, because multiple panel manufacturers claim to have the most advanced production line in the world.\u00a0 I suspect that, in reality, whoever has the newest large production line probably has the most advanced one.<\/p>\r\n

      Leapton also apparently makes solar inverters, but I couldn’t find any claim of a dedicated Leapton factory for them, so I doubt they’ll turn up in Australia any time soon.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n

      Japanese Style Production<\/h2>\r\n

      If you go to the Leapton Solar website<\/a> you’ll see that while they don’t hide the fact they manufacture in China, they really emphasize that they’re a Japanese company.\u00a0 For example, this is one of the images that flashes up on their homepage:<\/p>\r\n

      \"Leapton

      As you can see, the panel on the right uses advanced new blur technology to increase its use of indirect light.<\/p><\/div>\r\n

      As anyone who has a photographic memory for Japanese temples can tell you, that’s not located in Kobe or the Kinki\/Kansai region at all.\u00a0 It’s actually Senso-ji<\/a>, one of the oldest temples in Japan and located in Tokyo.\u00a0 It has nothing to do with Kobe and is clearly only there because they wanted the site to look ultra-Japanese.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n

      It’s hard to describe how weird this is.\u00a0 It’s like a Melbourne company deciding to use a picture of the Sydney Harbour Bridge to promote themselves.\u00a0 Other images Leapton Solar uses include Mt Fuji, which is located deep in the Japanese stereotype region of Kanto, and the Nara feral deer autonomous zone, which is at least has the benefit of only being one hour’s drive from Kobe.<\/p>\r\n

      \"Leapton

      Do not trust it! It wants to eat your grains<\/a>!<\/p><\/div>\r\n

      But we can’t really blame them for trying to associate their product with Japan.\u00a0 Australian companies do the same whenever they use unrelated pictures of kangaroos, Uluru, a didgeridoo, or a dog called Blue.\u00a0 What really matters is — do Leapton solar panels have the high-quality engineering<\/a> we associate with Japan?<\/p>\r\n

      After an exhaustive, frame-by-frame analysis of a Leapton Solar Youtube video of their newest Chinese production line, I have discovered the following:\u00a0<\/p>\r\n

      \"Leapton<\/p>\r\n

      Using a stick to keep you focused on the task you are doing, and so everyone else can see you are focused on the task you are doing, is very Japanese.\u00a0 You could say it helps them stick to it.\u00a0 They are clearly proud of their stick, as it shows up on average once every 48 seconds in the video.\u00a0 If you want to see the whole thing, here it is:<\/p>\r\n