Rigid or Flexible Solar Panels: Which is better?

If you’re converting a van, bus, truck, or ambulance into a home on wheels, solar is one of those decisions that shows up early on your build list and refuses to leave you alone. Once you actually start shopping, you run into a fork in the road pretty fast: rigid, framed panels, or the flexible, frameless kind.

Flexible panels have become popular in the Skoolie and van-life world because they seem to be made for curved roofs and weight-conscious rigs. But popular doesn’t automatically mean right for your build, so let’s look at where they actually earn their keep and where they tend to let people down.