JA Solar solar panels reviews

JA Solar is a Chinese company that is one of the largest manufacturers of solar panels in the world.

JA Solar has an Australian office located in Newcastle, which means there is a local team you can contact in case you have a problem. As their panels are salt mist corrosion resistant, they are suitable for installation anywhere in Australia.

JA Solar Pushing To Be Planet's Most Prolific PV Panel Producer

JA Solar states it has shipped 140 gigawatts of solar panels (cumulative) by the end of Q1, 2023. In early 2022, the firm was noted as the equal second biggest shipper of panels in the world for the previous year, behind Longi.

JA Solar Production Facilities

The bulk of JA Solar panel manufacturing capacity consists of 9 factories in China. Four near the giant metropolis of Shanghai and 2 in the vast Beijing conurbation. They also have a 400 megawatt facility in Malaysia, which is handy for avoiding US tariffs on Chinese made panels, and they have a 200 megawatt assembly plant in Vietnam. All told, the firm has 12 manufacturing locations globally.

JA Solar Panels Efficiency

JA Solar panels currently available in Australia and listed on our solar panel comparison table have a conversion efficiency of between 21.3% for the 420W Deep Blue 3.0 Light and and 22% for their 440W Deep Blue 3.0 Pro monocrystalline module, both of which are very respectable for solar panels at this end of the pricing spectrum.

Also quite respectable is JA Solar panels' temperature coefficient, which for the panel models mentioned above is -0.35%/°C.

You can find specifications and approximate Australian pricing of various JA modules on SolarQuotes panel comparison table.

JA Solar's Bankability

As we saw back in 2008, independent surveys of companies’ financial health are a vital part of completely failing to prevent economic disasters.

In order to further improve our ability to fail to avoid economic disasters, each year Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) performs a survey to estimate the financial health of solar manufacturers. This is done by basically determining how likely lenders would be to accept a solar farm using a particular manufacturer's modules as collateral for a loan.

In 2014 JA Solar came 3rd out of 11 companies on this measure of bankability. And in 2016 they came 6th out of 15 companies putting them into the top 40% of all those surveyed.

Fast-forward to 2021, and the BloombergNEF (BNEF) 2021 PV module bankability survey indicated JA Solar remained in the top tier of PV module manufacturers in terms of financial stability. It's not clear how they fared in the 2022 survey.

JA Solar And The Hemlock Saga

Hemlock, an oddly named US silicon producer, was attempting to sue JA Solar for close to one billion US dollars, but the two companies arrived at a settlement back in 2016. As part of the settement, JA Solar entered into a new Long-Term Supply Agreement whereby it was to buy solar grade polycrystalline silicon products from Hemlock on a quarterly basis until October 31, 2026.

The original dispute arose after JA Solar had agreed to purchase $103.5 million US worth of silicon from Hemlock and decided not to do that after silicon prices fell and they could get it more cheaply elsewhere.  Rather than sue them for US $103.5 million for breaking their promise and screwing them over, Hemlock decided to sue for almost one billion US dollars instead, because of optimism, I guess. 

JA Solar Goes Private

In July 2018, the company announced the completion of its merger with JASO Acquisition Limited and that it had ceased to be a publicly traded company.

JA Solar Warranty

JA Solar Deep Blue panels available in Australia mentioned above carry a 25-year product warranty. While 12 years was once standard for panels in this pricing range (toward the budget end of the market), price comparable competitors were increasingly shifting to a 25-year product warranty and JA Solar have followed suit.

I Am Fine With Recommending JA Solar Panels

JA Solar panels are reliable and cost effective. While they had dropped  a little on bankability scores in the past, it is not really possible to draw any firm conclusions from that about how likely they are to remain in existence as a company; but its 2021 result was encouraging. The fact the company has tier 1 status indicates they are considered to be a reliable manufacturer that will probably stick around.