What's the average lifespan of a solar panel?

[kindredspirit]

What\'s the average lifespan of a solar panel?

I have a dual solar panel installed on my boat for times when it's at a mooring instead of a marina. (I'd hate to be at a mooring and find the batteries flat on my boat)

What's the normal lifespan of solar panels? Should they last indefinitely? Or do they gradually lose their effectiveness? My panel is permanently wired to the batteries with a little diode thingie to stop the current going the wrong way at night.

 

[misterg]

Re: What\'s the average lifespan of a solar panel?

It depends on what type of panel it is. AFAIK (and I'm not an expert) cells made from silicon wafers have a very long life (maybe 10-20 years??) without serious degradation, but panels made from these can fail due to the interconnections between cells breaking.

'Thin film' or 'amorphous' panels (which are a coating on a glass or flexible substrate) *used* to suffer from fairly rapid degradation (maybe 3-5 years??). Typically, these generate a lot more volts than required when new, to allow them to continue to provide useful power as they degrade. I don't know what the 'state of the art' is for these nowadays.

Sort of summary selected at random from Google

What guarantee does the manufacturer give? /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Andy

 

[kindredspirit]

Re: What\'s the average lifespan of a solar panel?

It's a substantial panel bought from a reputable manufacturer (Barden) and installed in 2002. I would think that it's out of guarantee by now.

 

[misterg]

Re: What\'s the average lifespan of a solar panel?

"Amazing 26 Year Life Expectancy!" for the semi-flexible Solara 'M' series panels, a 26 year design life for the rigid 'S' series, but nothing specified for the flexible, folding, or 'trickle chargers'.

Barden web page

/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Andy