The Lifespan of Photovoltaic Solar Panels

Photovoltaic solar panels are becoming a popular means of off-grid power production. With high power output over long daylight times they can easily provide enough electricity to power the average family home or even several homes. The greatest thing about solar panels is that they are entirely scalable. The more you panels have, the more electricity is provided, however; before we rush out and spend such an awful amount of money we need to consider how long the panels will last. Generally speaking, most solar panel manufacturer’s warranty their panels constant output for 15-20 years. Indeed, if we investigate and research that’s about the same basic number anyone will come up with or bother giving out. What they mean by that figure is that the glass surface of the panel will be too scuffed in 1-2 decades to allow the full currant to be generated. If we were to protect and clean the surface of the panels regularly we could in theory extend the life of those panels. Many panels will fail to damage long before their life expectancy has expired. This is the unfortunate downside of the inexpensive glass panels we mostly see. These glass panels are often damaged by storm blown debris or other factors within the first few years. A pinecone falling from high enough can shatter the glass covering your photovoltaic cells as easily as a rock would. We can cover the panels in a protective coating but in most cases that will reduce the power output. The best method for significantly expanding the life of your Photovoltaic solar panels is still to clean and service them regularly. Sand can scrape the glass surface over time by nothing more than wind blowing it across the glass. If we were to keep the surface of the panels free of dust and dirt we can eliminate this problem. Think for a moment about the solar cells that power our space satellites. They will indeed continue to operate for many decades if not forever simply because of the vacuum of space keeping the panels free of debris. The same effect can be given here on earth it just requires a little more work on the side of us human beings. Even with the average life of solar panels being 15-20 years we usually make all of the money we spent back in the form of free electricity long before the panels reach their warranted time limit. 15-20 years is a good solid period. We can clean the panels in order to make them last longer and we can cover them in order to protect them from debris. There’s no reason we can’t keep any given solar panel from producing power over the course of our lifetimes with just a little bit of maintenance.

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