Solar panels are usually sold with 25 to 30 years of performance promises. But what happens after that, when the warranty language is long gone and you are

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7461728

Solar panels are usually sold with 25 to 30 years of performance promises. But what happens after that, when the warranty language is long gone and you are

  • FreedomAdvocateEnglish
    4·
    8 hours ago

    Who thought that the warranty of anything meant the end of it? No one. It just means that you’re on your own from then on if they have issues or die.

    • how_we_burned@lemmy.zipEnglish
      1·
      2 hours ago

      The idea any manufacture or system integrator would be around in 25 years makes solar panel warranties worthless anyway.

  • Thorry@feddit.orgEnglish
    11·
    2 days ago

    In the real world you can expect panels to lose on average no more than 10% per decade. Usually it’s less, somewhere around the 7-8% mark. Some manufacturers or installers give warranty for a max of 10% in the first decade. However due to natural variability of the energy produced, it would have to be pretty bad in order for anyone to notice.

    The reason lifetimes of solar panels is given somewhere around 20-30 years isn’t because they stop functioning after that time. It’s because they simply won’t perform very well after that time. It’s a double edged sword, where the existing panels degrade and new panels get better. Especially if the mounting can be re-used, it becomes more and more favorable to just replace the panels. Chances are within 30 years at least one panel would have failed, in a string configuration that often means the entire string goes down. Depending on the setup that one defunct panel can be bypassed, but simply replacing all the panels makes more sense.

    One of the parts I would like to see improvements in longevity is the inverters. Those are pretty expensive a lot of the time (depending on where you live they have to meet very strict specs and certification, driving up cost) and don’t live as long. Typically an inverter will work for at least 10 years, but they hardly ever make it to 20 years. So an installation that runs for 25 years will probably have its inverter(s) replaced at least once.

    This article doesn’t state anything new, this has been the case for a very long time now.