The best way to make solar panel lifespan last longer is to work with reputable installers who provide reliable customer service. It is also important to buy solar panels with a reliable warranty – many panel manufacturers provide 10 to 12 years of equipment warranty for their panels, covering defects and environmental damage, as well as a production warranty that usually lasts about 25 years, to ensure that the output of your panels is higher than providing a certain amount of energy for your family.
Nevertheless, keeping your solar panel system well maintained can reduce the annual degradation rate and guarantee longer panel performance. You can take the following measures to extend the service life of solar panels:
The industry standard for the production life of solar panels is 25-30 years. However, solar panels will not die in 25 to 30 years. On the contrary, their production will be much lower than the manufacturers’ expectations. If you do not know how long your solar panel lifespan can generate enough energy, it is difficult to understand the upfront cost of using solar energy. Your solar panels will be able to offset your power consumption for decades, but it is also important to understand industry forecasts and degradation rates.
Solar panels will continue to work for decades because they will not be physically damaged by wind, debris or any other external factors. This is mainly because solar panels do not have any moving parts – they rarely break from the inside and are usually only damaged by external forces, such as poor shelf settings or bad weather.So solar panel lifespan is long.
You don’t have to worry about the solar panel lifespan. The service life of solar panels from 25 to 30 years is significantly longer than their “energy recovery time” or epbt. Epbt is the time it takes for a solar panel to generate enough clean electricity to “repay” the energy originally used to make it. An analysis by Brookhaven National Laboratory in 2010 found that the epbt of solar panels was only six months – with the improvement of panel manufacturing efficiency, this number must have decreased in the past six years.
The key factor for solar panel lifespan is panel degradation rate.A 2012 study by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) found that the output of solar panels decreased by 0.8% on average every year. This rate of decline is called the solar panel degradation rate. Although this drop rate indicator will vary depending on the panel brand you purchase, the drop rate provided by high-quality manufacturers such as SunPower is as low as 0.3%. With the progress of solar panel technology over the years, the degradation rate of solar panels has been increasing.
