When making a solar investment it is important to research your options and purchase panels with a warranty that meets your needs. When looking at the solar panel systems, warranty was part of the decision for us. The panels we purchased from Silfab Solar - SLA-310M SLA-M come with a 25 year workmanship warranty. In particular the product warranty is 12 years and the Linear Power Performance guarantee is 25 years. This means that the product will be free from defects for 12 years and the power is guaranteed to perform for 25 years or panels will be replaced. The inverter we purchased is from Solar Edge Technologies and this also has a 12 year warranty. The overall labor warranty for the system is 10 years so all parts and labor needed is covered for 10 years. Then for 2 years parts are covered but labor to install is not. By year 11 the solar loan will be paid off and power production will drastically reduce monthly bills. It is at this point any repairs or parts will be out of pocket.
There are more extensive warranties you can get, some even last for 25 years. To get longer warranties will either cost more, or will need to be compensated for with less expensive or efficient components. A system that came with a 25 year all around warranty including a 25 year labor warranty cost almost double per KW than the system we purchased. With the less expensive system we got we were able to get higher wattage and more efficient mid range panels than the system with a lifetime warranty. We estimate that after 12 years for our system any repair costs can be managed since there will no longer be a solar loan payment to make. Personally, I feel any needed parts or labor for the system during the latter half of the expected life will be less expensive than paying for the system in full again. Also my excel sheet (I still need to post this) estimates roughly 40k in savings over 25 years with a modest 2% cost of electric increase each year. However, only time will tell if our choice was the right one.
In regards to maintenance, overall solar systems are fairly maintenance free, especially in locations that get frequent rain. If a drop in production is noticed then a power washing may be needed. In the 1.5 months we have been live with solar there has not been any maintenance required. However, we did have one panel go out due to a bad optimizer but that was ordered and replaced.
Our solar journey has just begun and we still have plenty to learn... We still have yet to see our first DTE bill with our solar panels in service but early estimates show that we are currently producing more than our households average daily usage over the last 12 months. I will try to post again soon and cover how our production has been overall and compare production on snowy, cloudy, rainy and sunny days.
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