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How do we think they are doing now?

whjohnson
So, in a provocative curious mood on the eve of Easter w/end I began to wonder about PV panels.

There must be many by now which have been in service for 10 years or more.

How do we think they are doing in comparison to when they were new?

How does, or rather, what is a typical rate in efficiency fall-off over time?

My guess is that many, especially those installed on dwellings with difficult accessible roofs will not have been looked at nor cleaned for at least a decade if they have been in service for that long.


What do we reckon? Would a figure of say 50% or less be an unreasonable estimate of today's efficiency level for a decade old installation?

I wonder if Greta does a PV cleaning round in the same way window cleaners do?

Happy Easter.
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    lyledunn:

    Their efficiency is one thing but are they being used to best individual benefit? Feeding back into the supply network isn’t really worth the effort, perhaps the EV roll out might find a better purpose for them. 


    If you've got an installation that's a few years old, then by far the most important thing is "farming" subsidies.  The government went a bit mad on subsidies in the early years.  As a result, my overall energy bills every year are strongly negative - I get paid more every year for generation than I spend on gas and electricity combined.  Given that, what I do with the electricity I generate is largely lost in the noise.


    When my original inverter failed after only 6 years (some early ones were very poorly designed), I got a new one with a battery attached.  I can be smug posting from my computer at 9.30pm, running entirely on battery power.  But actually the economics don't make much sense.  Batteries are still expensive, and I actually lose a bit in subsidies.  Charging a battery and then discharging it is never 100% efficient.  On the plus side, I actually got to use "islanded" mode for the first time during a power cut last Monday.  I switched the house to solar-only and ran off-grid for a few hours.


    The economics for new installs are totally different, and it only makes sense if you use electricity continuously during the day.


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  • 0
    lyledunn:

    Their efficiency is one thing but are they being used to best individual benefit? Feeding back into the supply network isn’t really worth the effort, perhaps the EV roll out might find a better purpose for them. 


    If you've got an installation that's a few years old, then by far the most important thing is "farming" subsidies.  The government went a bit mad on subsidies in the early years.  As a result, my overall energy bills every year are strongly negative - I get paid more every year for generation than I spend on gas and electricity combined.  Given that, what I do with the electricity I generate is largely lost in the noise.


    When my original inverter failed after only 6 years (some early ones were very poorly designed), I got a new one with a battery attached.  I can be smug posting from my computer at 9.30pm, running entirely on battery power.  But actually the economics don't make much sense.  Batteries are still expensive, and I actually lose a bit in subsidies.  Charging a battery and then discharging it is never 100% efficient.  On the plus side, I actually got to use "islanded" mode for the first time during a power cut last Monday.  I switched the house to solar-only and ran off-grid for a few hours.


    The economics for new installs are totally different, and it only makes sense if you use electricity continuously during the day.


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