Flaming June

[marshman]

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[Stinsy]

Anecdotal evidence on this site by members infers there is practically next to no degradation over a 10 year period.

Based on my actual generation data I would say the degradation over 13 years is zero - Still see the my original system inverter max out at 3040W on cool sunny days, May was one of my best months ever (excludes May 2020!!) - of course I can't swear the conditions were the same but generally under the same apparent conditions, I get the same output.

Would be interesting to know if anyone on here has noticed an actual measurable decrease in output due to ageing of the panels.

The unanimous opinion seems to be zero noticeable deg. This is interesting because panel manufacturers produced pretty graphs telling customers that their panels would degrade by 1% per year (or something similar). However precisely zero people are seeing this deg.

There weren’t many domestic PV installations in the UK before 2010 so it’ll be interesting to see what happens in the next 20 years but it looks like those early-FiT systems will still be generating long after the FiT payments stop.

[Joeboy]

Anecdotal evidence on this site by members infers there is practically next to no degradation over a 10 year period.

Based on my actual generation data I would say the degradation over 13 years is zero - Still see the my original system inverter max out at 3040W on cool sunny days, May was one of my best months ever (excludes May 2020!!) - of course I can't swear the conditions were the same but generally under the same apparent conditions, I get the same output.

Would be interesting to know if anyone on here has noticed an actual measurable decrease in output due to ageing of the panels.

The unanimous opinion seems to be zero noticeable deg. This is interesting because panel manufacturers produced pretty graphs telling customers that their panels would degrade by 1% per year (or something similar). However precisely zero people are seeing this deg.

There weren’t many domestic PV installations in the UK before 2010 so it’ll be interesting to see what happens in the next 20 years but it looks like those early-FiT systems will still be generating long after the FiT payments stop.

I would hazard a guess that the 1% pa figure was agreed on within industry as they 'had' to say something. The question for me would be 'when exactly does a panel become scrap'. We are not commercial entities, we don't need to squeeze that last couple of percent out over 10,s of thousand panels.

I'd rather the article had shown examples of where second hand commercial panels slightly past their peak are available to the residential diy market?

[AE-NMidlands]

By coincidence I was in a town-centre car park in Northwich yesterday and noticed half a dozen houses with identical 8-panel arrays where some of them had been replaced. Visible here https://www.google.com/maps/@53.2606329 ... ?entry=ttu (if that works.)
I noticed a) a slightly different shade of black and b) in some cases slightly different alignment, e.g. the house with a pale green shed up near the back door...
Maybe some panels have failed, and our members are universally fortunate, or perhaps we don't consider individual panel failures as evidence of deterioration in output? (which I suppose it's not, actually.)
A

[Stinsy]

By coincidence I was in a town-centre car park in Northwich yesterday and noticed half a dozen houses with identical 8-panel arrays where some of them had been replaced. Visible here https://www.google.com/maps/@53.2606329 ... ?entry=ttu (if that works.)
I noticed a) a slightly different shade of black and b) in some cases slightly different alignment, e.g. the house with a pale green shed up near the back door...
Maybe some panels have failed, and our members are universally fortunate, or perhaps we don't consider individual panel failures as evidence of deterioration in output? (which I suppose it's not, actually.)
A

I’m not sure those darker panels have been replaced. Could be from a different batch, or rotated 180 °, or just not aligned perfectly.

[Joeboy]

By coincidence I was in a town-centre car park in Northwich yesterday and noticed half a dozen houses with identical 8-panel arrays where some of them had been replaced. Visible here https://www.google.com/maps/@53.2606329 ... ?entry=ttu (if that works.)
I noticed a) a slightly different shade of black and b) in some cases slightly different alignment, e.g. the house with a pale green shed up near the back door...
Maybe some panels have failed, and our members are universally fortunate, or perhaps we don't consider individual panel failures as evidence of deterioration in output? (which I suppose it's not, actually.)
A

I’m not sure those darker panels have been replaced. Could be from a different batch, or rotated 180 °, or just not aligned perfectly.

Did anyone else move themselves up the road to see what was in the skip?

[marshman]

The "alignment" I think is just distortion in the Google images where they stitch a series of pictures together.

I have 54 panels altogether here, some dating back to at least 2006, 20 of which are second hand from a solar farm "Upgrade". No failures.

There are also two largish arrays either side of us on the roof of poultry houses (chicken sheds) I think the arrays are around 30 kW each, they are both at least 11 years old. Never seen any replaced on them either - apart from a couple that have blown (or been sucked) off the roof in storms.


And yes of course I had a look in the skip - why wouldn't you

[AE-NMidlands]

The "alignment" I think is just distortion in the Google images where they stitch a series of pictures together.

I have 54 panels altogether here, some dating back to at least 2006, 20 of which are second hand from a solar farm "Upgrade". No failures.

No, definitely misaligned, which is what caught my eye in the first place. That sort of thing jumps out at me. Then I realised there were 2 shades of black as well. I don't think it's a coincidence that the arrays with misalignment all have mixed panel colours, which I have never noticed before, and I have been there about a dozen times over the last few years.

[Joeboy]

We hit a dual system PB of around 65kWh today. Missed the single system PB by about 0.5kWh. Will need to trim hedge and wash panels when I get home, see what we can hit before 10th June or so.

Fintray, an onsite PB of 100kWh generation is mighty impressive. I need to go to Wales for help to crack that number! .

Washed my neighbours panels and my garage panels this morning, got about a 200W increase on both systems after they were cleaned.

Knocking about this morning and SWMBO shouts down to me, "a lot of pollen on the panels, shouldn't you be cleaning them"? So I did, that's ma girl!

[Fintray]

We hit a dual system PB of around 65kWh today. Missed the single system PB by about 0.5kWh. Will need to trim hedge and wash panels when I get home, see what we can hit before 10th June or so.

Fintray, an onsite PB of 100kWh generation is mighty impressive. I need to go to Wales for help to crack that number! .

Washed my neighbours panels and my garage panels this morning, got about a 200W increase on both systems after they were cleaned.

Knocking about this morning and SWMBO shouts down to me, "a lot of pollen on the panels, shouldn't you be cleaning them"? So I did, that's ma girl!

Sounds just like my SWMBO, good at finding jobs for me to do!