Life of solar PV components

[openspaceman]

Much as I expected; Fintray and Nowty's figures belie the story of degradation over ten years.

I watched the first few of his vids and his octopus referral link got me wondering, now this latest misrepresentation has put me off him.

[Jinx]

Just condemned a significant amount of panels due to junction box failure

I have a site down to 20% due to low Riso issues, yep, 80% off! It’s actual panel failure rather than the usual cabling causing low Riso.

Another site being repowered due to MC4 failures, these have a moulded plug design.

Single panel replacements are a daily event event across the region for various reasons. Just had some thermal drone surveys in and they have detected a wide range of issues.

If it’s just string inverters then Aurora low Riso issues are by far the most common I see, it’s a shame they are nice units but with inherent faults the manufacturers didn’t bother to fix

[nowty]

Just condemned a significant amount of panels due to junction box failure

I have a site down to 20% due to low Riso issues, yep, 80% off! It’s actual panel failure rather than the usual cabling causing low Riso.

Another site being repowered due to MC4 failures, these have a moulded plug design.

Single panel replacements are a daily event event across the region for various reasons. Just had some thermal drone surveys in and they have detected a wide range of issues.

If it’s just string inverters then Aurora low Riso issues are by far the most common I see, it’s a shame they are nice units but with inherent faults the manufacturers didn’t bother to fix

I presume you’re taking about Solar farms rather than domestic ?

How many do you look after ?

[Jinx]

Just condemned a significant amount of panels due to junction box failure

I have a site down to 20% due to low Riso issues, yep, 80% off! It’s actual panel failure rather than the usual cabling causing low Riso.

Another site being repowered due to MC4 failures, these have a moulded plug design.

Single panel replacements are a daily event event across the region for various reasons. Just had some thermal drone surveys in and they have detected a wide range of issues.

If it’s just string inverters then Aurora low Riso issues are by far the most common I see, it’s a shame they are nice units but with inherent faults the manufacturers didn’t bother to fix

I presume you’re taking about Solar farms rather than domestic ?

How many do you look after ?

Yes, commercial. I have differing involvement depending on area but it’s a large portfolio.

[nowty]

Just condemned a significant amount of panels due to junction box failure

I have a site down to 20% due to low Riso issues, yep, 80% off! It’s actual panel failure rather than the usual cabling causing low Riso.

Another site being repowered due to MC4 failures, these have a moulded plug design.

Single panel replacements are a daily event event across the region for various reasons. Just had some thermal drone surveys in and they have detected a wide range of issues.

If it’s just string inverters then Aurora low Riso issues are by far the most common I see, it’s a shame they are nice units but with inherent faults the manufacturers didn’t bother to fix

I presume you’re taking about Solar farms rather than domestic ?

How many do you look after ?

Yes, commercial. I have differing involvement depending on area but it’s a large portfolio.

Have you found any particular brand of panel to avoid ?

[Jinx]

Have you found any particular brand of panel to avoid ?

TBH, I’ve seen issues with most brands but they are batch dependent rather than a consistently bad brand, I have a couple of warranty issues I’m seeing at the moment and some brands are looking like they will support these 9/10 year old panels, so that’s promising.

A big non-Chinese brand using moulded MC4s has been a huge issue, however for domestic, replacing the connectors would not be that major.

[Petertc]

Not sure on that thes cost of mc4 for domestic, could be a scaffolding charge at least on a ground mount easy to get to.
I also seem to remember issues a few years ago with the back sheets failing on some modules.
Doubt that there are too many power one (ABB) trios left out there, loads of problems about 8 years ago. Have helped with a couple of repowering designs going from central inverter to string inverters a couple of years ago.

[Jinx]

Trios are still the most popular, then Sunnys and then Huawei in the sites I see, may well be different across the country. E018’s are most common failure, needs a new output board generally and Fimer support is.. well just read the Google reviews for Fimer, I’ll say no more!

Power-one had them from ‘06 then ABB in 2013. ABB should have sorted it out but I guess it’s more complicated than it appears, now Fimer are seemingly up in the air


Those that don’t fail with earth faults will probably go on to have relay failure but at least it’s easier on the Trios’ than the Uno’s put in domestic properties.



The low Riso panels that I referred to above are failing with the laminate/backsheet. I’ve seen photos from Techs that show it looking like a ballon where the water has filled the module. In most cases the failure is not visible, some may show water ingress along the very bottom seam but the IR readings are so low a single panel will trip the inverters.