By Jo Nova
Engineers really don’t like phrases like “right skewed degradation with a long fat tail”
But new data suggests that’s exactly what’s is happening in the global solar fleet, and it’s bad news for insurers, installers, and grid planners.
One of the largest and longest studies ever done has looked at 11,000 solar panels around the world and found the same mysterious bump in unexpected failures. Surprisingly it didn’t matter whether the panels were installed in hot, cold or humid environments, the unexpected failures were still there. This suggests the higher failure rate is a systemic problem, not just something that afflicts those installed, say, in humid areas, or in the desert.
UNSW study finds up to 20% of solar panels degrade far faster than expected
By Casey McGuire Electrical Connection
Lead author Yang Tang says this has serious implications for system longevity: “Most solar systems are designed to last around 25 years, based on their warranty period.”
“But at least one in five systems degrade much faster than the typical rate and roughly one in 12 degrade twice as fast. This means some systems could lose about 45% of their output by the 25-year mark or reach the end of their useful life in as little as 11 years.”
This long tail is more than a statistical oddity. It especially poses a large financial risk for solar farms, where hundreds of thousands of panels are installed, since the data indicates there is a hidden cost associated with samples that do not perform as well or for as long as they should.
Importantly, it has also been shown that the extreme degradation observed in these panels is not related to the climatic conditions they are exposed to – ruling out the possibility that the data was being skewed by samples placed in extreme environmental locations such as very hot deserts.
Across the whole global fleet, the system performance degrades at 0.9% per year. The graph below plots the degradation rate of the energy produced from each panel. A few lemons are declining at 2, 3, or 4% annually. But the surprise is a big fat bump in panels degrading at 1.3% – 1.8% per year. That bump means that a lot more panels might fail within the warrantee period and need replacing. Maintenance costs and insurance bills will have been calculated on a normal curve, so this is an ominous sign that quite a lot of panels will not make it to the 25 year expected lifespan, and they won’t be producing as many kilowatts as expected either. So maintenance costs are going to be higher than expected. Electricity costs will be more, and to get rid of “the bump” will raise the prices of new panel designs. Someone will have to improve testing and throw away more dud panels before they leave the factory, or they will have to increase the safety margins on components.
https://www.unsw.edu.au/newsroom/news/2026/01/research-targets-long-tail-solar-panel-issue
Given that hardly any solar plants are 25 years old, we don’t know how the degradation curve will evolve over time. It’s possible these early unexpected failures might grow into a fatter longer tail as the solar fleet ages.
There are three kinds of failures:
- Infant mortality –– when young panels die in the first few months due to manufacturing defects or transport and installation damage.
- The long tail surprise — between 3 – 12 years. These could be latent microcracks that slowly spread, it could be moisture ingress, or hot-spot feedback loops. These are hard to detect and fix because they might look fine early on. There are also interconnected failures where one component depends on another. If the backsheet is damaged, water can leak in. These failures can multiply in a domino effect.
- Natural attrition — panels are expected to wear out and age from 15 to 30 years due to the slow damage of UV radiation, and cycles of hot and cold. This is a predictable failure rate that warranties are designed around.
It’s the second sort that wasn’t expected. And Tang et al point out that microcracks might not even cause a problem for several years, but gradually put stress on other components until there is a cascade of failure.
Who could have guessed that equipment covering tens of thousands of square kilometers with complex electronic components would break in a thousand tiny ways?
h/t Chris Uhlmann “Systems Under Strain”.
REFERENCE
Tang. Y. et al (2026) Understanding and Reducing the Risk of Extreme Photovoltaic Degradation, IEEE Journal of Voltaics, Vol 16. 1.
Press Release UNSW — Cracking the ‘long tail’ problem: new research targets hidden solar panel issue
Photo of a solar plant in the ACT by JoNova
” will have been calculated on a normal curve,”
I don’t know if this is true or not. In college many years ago, probability distributions were considered with the caution that most of what we were learning was about the “normal curve”, and that would not be useful in many cases. I remember the Pareto distribution being mentioned with respect to lighting strikes and other natural phenomenon. Better training since my feeble attempts might be expected when large sums are being spent.
170
The graph certainly does not match a normal distribution.
What I see is two peaks.
It looks like two distributions laid over each other on the same x axis. Maybe they should have looked at the origin of the panels as well as environmental conditions as the source of failure.
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If it’s truly a bimodal distribution it’s not uncommon with electronic failures. There is the first peak representing early failures due to manufacturing defects etc. and then a second peak representing ageing processes etc..
It is modelled using a mixed Weibull distribution rather than a Gaussian (normal distribution) because Weibull can accommodate skewed data which a Gaussian cannot.
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Yes, knowing the various manufacturers of those 1000’s of panels would have been very for sorting the data.
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“Maybe they should have looked at the origin of the panels…”
Well, China has built a reputation for dodgy quality control. Maybe, like Japan, they can reverse this, but I doubt it will happen with a command economy.
00
When doing Monte Carlo simulations of whatever was required (usually some sort of queueing for assigning a vehicle fleet), I found right-tailed Poisson to give far better (closer to observed reality) results than the Normal Distribution.
Mechanical/electrical/electronic equipment usually falls/fails on the “Bathtub” curve.
50
Which is why you always “run-in” new mechanical hard drives before trusting them.😁
50
Real-world evidence is, yet again, showing ‘the models’ to be a pile of wombat scat.
The future was looking so bright until it wasn’t.
‘Thank goodness for other people’s money.’
Subsidy Farm Inc’s motto.
‘Sacrifices will have to be made.’
High priests of Hoopla.
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But Greg, think of all those jobs changing DUD panels over and over again.
Still, I wonder whether there is a check on panels installed in hot areas eg Queensland and those in more “temperate” climates such as northern UK eg those installed in Aberdeen?
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Adding to Greg in NZ comment about « Reality.»
Hailstorms are a risk factor in every solar farm ~ just read these reports about « crippled solar farms in the US.»
…and what about bushfires? ~ this video report from a solar farm near Wellington, NSW, damaged in a storm and then a bushfire.
What about dangerous chemicals released in smoke plus ground contamination?
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* high priests and priestesses excluded.
40
I suggest a tax … to fund a subsidy.
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Jim Chalmers and Chris Bowen will get right on to that!
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The anti-energy lobby don’t care if the panels don’t last long. In fact, since their real objective is to lower the standard of living of non-Elites, that is preferable.
You don’t see any Elites freezing in the dark do you? They can afford energy.
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Values Based Capitalism according to Treasurer Chalmers;
https://www.skynews.com.au/insights-and-analysis/old-socialist-project-the-primary-goal-of-jim-chalmers-valuesbased-capitalism-is-to-make-labor-look-busy/news-story/23991e484272606a2d65ae6aa8b802aa
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I have first hand knowledge of two sets of domestic panels in South East Queensland that both failed at the 6 year mark….44 panels all went to the dump. One Owner was lucky enough to get them replaced under the warranty, the other…nope. In that six year period, both installations had to replace failed inverters at least once.
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My smaller system is 10 yrs old. I’m on my third inverter and peak o/p is 30% of rated ie $2/d saving max. Have they “failed”?
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A neighbour got in early with solar.
He is on his 3rd inverter. It works out to be a life span of about 7 years.
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Sounds like it H. Although you could just have a couple of panels dragging the system down.
We have a system of similar age. Best its ever done is 90% of rated and currently the best we see is 70% of rated. Never had invertor issues but its a micro investor system with one under each panel.
50
Oh, dear!!
Whatever ELSE could go wrong for Black-Out Bowen?
And the NEM and AEMO.
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Very interesting and this clueless, unreliable and toxic rubbish should be abandoned ASAP, or have we really lost our minds?
Anyway we already know that these environmental S disasters and wind only last a very short time and have to be replaced again and again and a guaranteed ZERO change to our weather or climate forever.
Again, why can’t they just look up the data for themselves?
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Again, we’ve already seen a 98% drop in DEATH RATES from ALL extreme weather events over the last 100 years.
Here’s the proof from OWI Data, so what’s their problem?
Just 2 billion at risk in the 1920s and over 8.2 billion at risk today.
So how come 2025 recorded the lowest death rates over the last 100 years?
Even Dr Pielke jr predicted this in November 2025.
https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260112-111535/grapher/natural-disaster-death-rates.html?country=Flood~Extreme+weather~Wildfire~Drought~Extreme+temperature
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This from facebook. And natural events don’t help either. https://www.facebook.com/reel/2173126236826103. ToM
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The implications of these early failures for countries like Australia with a fanatical commitment to the anthropogenic global warming scam are profound.
As it is, we have been committed to an endless cycle of constant replacement of the random wind and solar subsidy-harvesting devices. This will just increase the tempo of the already-frequent replacement of panels.
Compare that with an actual coal, gas, nuclear or real hydro (not SH2) ppwer stations which will likely last no less than 50 years and likely much longer of inexpensive, reliable, clean energy. (If not blown up by Australian Government policy as a perverse form of public entertainment.)
There are nuclear power stations in the US receiving new certifications which will take their life to 70 years and then they’ll probably get recertified for extra life again.
The Mechanicville Hydroelectric Station, USA (1897) is thought to be the oldest hydro power station still operating with original equipment, others are still operating with replacement equipment.
Proper power stations (coal, gas, nuclear) are very much built and forgotten about with long term predictable amortisation unlike the unreliables which are subject to random failures and short lives and simply cannot function without massive consumer and/or taxpayer subsidies.
Australia’s and the Western world’s (except USA under TRUMP) lifeblood is being drained by this fanatical obsession with wind and solar. And for what? To give the Elites of the Left smug self-satisfaction and feelings of power over the downtrodden masses, because they will not personally suffer, just profit from the scam.
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“Proper power stations (coal, gas, nuclear) are very much built and forgotten about”
Much like the Royston / Rubicon remote automatic hydro electric scheme in the central highlands of Victoria. Built under the supervision of Sir Joh Monash in the 1920’s still operating to this day. I am certain a significant increased output could be achieved if the system was allowed to be fully rethought and rebuilt with modern technology.
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I wrote an article about it:
https://www.siliconchip.com.au/Issue/2013/February/The+Historic+Rubicon+Hydroelectric+Scheme
Still going strong.
If an experienced bushwalker (hiker) you can also walk around it, about 15km.
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The control systems were very advanced for the time.
I wrote:
The scheme is owned by AGL. As I noted in the article, after many weeks of asking, AGL were unable to identify a single person in the organisation who knew anything about it.
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There is a proposed 700 acre solar farm planned just below the Rubicon A switch yard. The only logic to this proposed solar installation is its proximity to transmission lines to Melbourne. i.e. any solar out put could be fed directly into the grid. Now while the pylons are in place, they are about a hundred years old , I have no idea if the wires have the capacity to handle greatly fluctuating inputs. If the wires need to be replaced with greater transmission capacity then I would assume that the pylons would also have to be strengthened to carry any additional weight. How would these costs be applied or accounted for? Who would foot the bill? As always plenty of questions, so few answers.
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I had no idea this was there. The tramway apparently ran up until the 90s, I wish I knew that back then. I went looking for a plan and this was the best I found. What an interesting project. Way back, around four decades ago, when I did a bit of design work I had to climb the face of the Karapiro dam above the swirling water and that was a freaky experience I can tell you. I have enormous respect for the guys who built these dams and was even lucky to know a number of the engineers — including the chief engineer Jack Ridley who gave me a reference — who worked on the Waikato river dam projects. These were amazing guys the likes of which we just don’t see any more. I have been through most of those dams; back then one of the elevators through rock was the fastest in the southern hemisphere.
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Had the pleasure of riding both the haulage and the tramway as a young un in the fifties. There was quite a settlement at the bottom of the haulage back in the day, a little row of houses along the Rubicon river road now gone while on the Royston side the Post Office still stands as a private residence. Parents used to play the odd game of tennis on courts just opposite junction. Just an open area these days. Up the top near the Royston aqueduct there is a magnificent stand of alpine ash. Very tall ( very ) and to the unknown easily thought to be “old growth”. there used to be a sign telling the story of this area being replanted in the 1970’s so not “old” in the real sense. Many places have been logged 3 times with little to show except new (renewable ) forest. These areas are quite different in their make up and support varying wildlife mixture. Interestingly much evidence exists to support logging coups as a preferred environment for the allegedly rare Leadbetters possum. This animal apparently thrives on the interface of logged areas and older forest.
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“AGL were unable to identify a single person in the organisation who knew anything about it.”
Your investigation probably would have been more productive in the Alexandra pub on a Friday night.
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Latest nuclear power station licensing USA is 80 years and subject to certification inspections periodically considering extending to 100 years;
https://www.energy.gov/articles/fact-sheet-energy-department-delivering-accelerating-deployment-nuclear-power
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Again why are we wasting endless billions $ on the toxic W & S rubbish when we’ve seen such a big fall in global death rates from burns and fires since 1980?
Just look at the data for the entire world and the huge improvement since 1980.
And global Human co2 emissions have increased by 15 billion tons per year since 1990 and all from the NON OECD countries, like China, India etc.
The wealthiest countries have the lowest fires and burns death rates but all countries have much lower death rates today and Aussies are the lowest.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/fire-death-rates?tab=line&country=OWID_WRL~OWID_LIC~OWID_HIC~OWID_UMC~OWID_LMC~African+Region+%28WHO%29~AUS
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Also consider that Australia will be “the last man standing” long after more sensible countries have ditched their wind and solar scams.
There will be a huge worldwide demand for coal, gas and nuclear power stations. Even if Australia ditches the Lib/Labs it will be almost impossible to get new power stations built because resources will be tied up elsewhere building them. Plus Australia might be effectively bankrupt by then.
Australians need to free themselves from the delusion that they are “The Lucky Country”. That wasn’t even Donald Horne’s intended meaning.
He meant this to be an ironic statement. He was criticising Australia’s reliance on inherited wealth of previous generations and natural resources rather than any significant innovation (except copying the worst ideas of others) and especially not intelligent leadership of any kind (at least by people who have significant influence).
There is no reason why Australia won’t go the way of pre-Milei Argentina or Venezuela, also formerly rich countries thought to have had a bright future, back in the day.
P.S.: Horne was wrong about Australia being run by second-rate people. They are not even that good.
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Nope – there already is. If you order a GE gas turbine today you might get it before 2030 if lucky..
A new order for a GE Vernova 7HA gas turbine placed today would likely see delivery in late 2028 at the earliest, with potential delays extending to 2029–2030 depending on production ramp-up and order prioritization.
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2025/09/2028-2030-to-get-a-ge-290-430mw-natural-gas-turbine.html
Coal and nuclear face much bigger hurdles in Australia than delivery lead times. Impossible for new coal plant within 10 years and nuclear within 15 years even if there were supportive Federal and State governments.
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The net zero emissions political game change here to transition away from from fossil fuels to natural gas now the Labor transition fuel of choice.
Problem being too many wind and solar try hards are also transitioning to gas.
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I am not sensing that to many people feel that lucky these days in the general sense. We should though, we are blessed in many ways.
I can think of only a few places I would consider moving to, and I am sure they would have issues once the rose coloured glasses came off.
51
This is not an issues for solar farms in Australia. None of them have value now. November was their worst income month last year but that month is indicative of their future.
In Nov 2025, SA solar farms sold 55,000MWh of electricity at an average price of $3/MWh to give total wholesale revenue of only $165,000. November is typically the best sunshine month of the year in Australia yet the solar farms in SA achieved a capacity factor of only 8.6%.
The very low income and low CF has nothing to do with panel performance. The available demand for solar farms to serve is in rapid decline. The oldest SA farm is 8 years old and the most recent only 5 years old.
The worst part is that Blackout and Sleezy are offering guaranteed returns for a new Chinese built farm in South Australia using taxpayers money. These new solar farms have ever diminishing opportunity to sell electrical energy.
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Do we know how much taxpayer money is being provided or is that the usual state secret?
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No but Pauline and Barnaby asked the question and Chalmers replied he cannot tell them because it is commercial in confidence. I expect it is a guaranteed return on estimated capital. Once it is operational, the owners will be paid monthly irrespective of output with the Federal government on the hook to make up shortfall from lack of sales.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiZLW-LkGXg
The actual answer is that it is a huge waste of money because AEMO have not realised they have destroyed the economic value of the grid. There might be still time to cancel this waste if Chalmers is pushed to answer the question without massive contractual exit fees.
It appears that it is not yet widely recognised that Australia’s WDGs are stranded assets; knobbled by distributed PV. However investors are pulling out of projects as the economics and community acceptance sours:
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=solar+farm+project+cancelled&t=osx&ia=web
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It was recently discussed at Sky News that most RET government taxpayer funding is accounted for off budget so not available for public examination
60
Other than making the rules. no government has any role in the RET. The retailers are the allocated bagmen taking money from consumers and giving it to the wind and solar farms.
But the RET is so close to dead it is all but irrelevant now. The price of LGCs is $4.65/MWh. That is why the solar farms cannot make money. They have very small margin to zero now. Their unit revenue in November 2025 was only #3/MWh.
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No, but it is a real issue for Roof Top solar installations, which have much more capacity potential than all the solar farms.
And since their output is only estimated,..not actually metered,.. we cannot know how this affects the actual vs theoretical performance.
10
RickWill, a couple of points: If House hold solar panels are likely to fail sooner, and with expected more demand from AI /data centres, these newer solar “farms” might see increased demand for their electricity production..
Also if a “wind farm” developer is getting lucrative guaranteed returns from government subsidies they won’t care about panel performance or curtailment, if fact, the idiot government bureaucrats would probably continue paying long after the “farm’ has lost the ability to harness sun rays due to premature panel degradation.
10
Again, here’s the actual reason we’re supposed to be wasting endless billions of $ on the toxic W & S rubbish.
Here’s the OWI Data graphs for annual OECD and NON OECD countries co2 emissions, the World and tiny Aussie annual co2 emissions at the bottom.
The graphs are active so we can check the data for any year since Dr Hansen’s BS speech in Washington DC in 1988.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-co2-emissions-per-country?country=OWID_WRL~Non-OECD+%28GCP%29~OECD+%28GCP%29~AUS
50
And not a single solar farm will be setup in a fashion where you can identify/replace an individual panel that’s failing badly. At best they can identify the underperforming strings.
At that point, maintenance boils down to “NOT WORTH THE EFFORT”, and the farm breakeven point pushes further out.
At least you’ll have some nice shade for grazing animals.
90
Bowen keeps telling us renewables are “cheap”. He leaves out the important part: renewables are cheap and nasty.
120
He puts the CAN* in “You cannot be serious!”
* Cheap And Nasty
70
The bell curve strongly suggests that those PV panels are a big fat, oversold, fail.
70
So we’re now living in the SAFEST world for Humans ever and yet our delusional donkeys want the OECD countries to WASTE TRILLIONs more $ on toxic, unreliable W & S forever and all for a guaranteed ZERO return?
Can anyone tell us what their problems are with our very recent Human FLOURISHING? That’s in just 0.1% of our existence since 1800 and the use of fossil fuels by the UK.
So what are their problems today?
Is it our record Life expectancy since 1800? From 28.5 years then to 74 years today.
Is it SLR since 1850s?
Is it Arctic or Antarctic Ice?
Is it the flourishing Polar bear numbers since the 1950s?
Is it the GBR coral increases since 1985?
Is it the GREENING of the Earth over the last 40 years?
Is it record crops and Human calories increases even though we now have 6.2 billion MORE people to feed since 1920?
Is it the flourishing Human population in poor Africa of over 1.5 billion today and life expectancy of 64 years?
Is it deaths from extreme weather events that have fallen by 98% since 1920.
Is it much lower strength cyclones over the last 200 years? See Dr Nott’s studies covering the last 6,000 years.
Is it the fact that SLs were much higher 4,000 years ago? See ABC Catalyst program?
Is it Coral islands where Dr Kench’s studies found 87% increased in size or have remained the same?
Is it Eemian SLs that were 6 metres higher than our Holocene SLs?
Or is it Eemian temps that were 8 c higher than today?
160
My fingers are crossed that my solar panels and batteries will fail after 9 years.
My fingers are also crossed that the supplier is still honouring their 10 year guarantee at that time.
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Thankfully there’s tens of millions of taxpayers to bleed dry to offset the chinesium fake lifespan data.
Unfortunately, warranty claims will wipe out the solar companies, assuming they’re even around at the 10 year mark, and a lot aren’t.
Not that any of this matters anyway when framed against the big picture…
50
The CCP has taken advantage of the UN Lima Agreement, Agenda-21 and others including relating to free trade agreements and building their economy as quickly as they can, and who could blame them for grabbing the opportunity offered on a plate by developed UN member nations?
Bigger economy, improved economic prosperity and related revenue streams and from exporting in volume, even dumping and subsiding to increase export figures and earning foreign currency to strengthen the position of the developing nation and government.
The left have so many misleading allegations to make against POTUS Trump and his fightback to restore US economy and related manufacturing businesses and others but Trump is well informed and the Australian Labor Government should take his advice before our economic prosperity is permanently damaged.
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If early replacements occur as predicted by our statistical model, they can produce 50 times more waste in just four years than IRENA anticipates. That figure translates to around 315,000 metric tonnes of waste, based on an estimate of 90 tonnes per MW weight-to-power ratio.
By 2035, discarded panels would outweigh new units sold by 2.56 times. In turn, this would catapult the LCOE (levelized cost of energy, a measure of the overall cost of an energy-producing asset over its lifetime) to four times the current projection. The economics of solar — so bright-seeming from the vantage point of 2021 — would darken quickly as the industry sinks under the weight of its own trash.
https://hbr.org/2021/06/the-dark-side-of-solar-power
Invariably closer to the truth than polly-waffle.
Saving the planet one gargantuan solar panel landfill at a time.
Look at power costs in Texas. Solar is 10x that of coal, at around $480 MWh…
80
Average wholesale price for grid solar in Australia in 2025 was $33/MWh.
Do you have a reference for the $480/MWh for Texas. That is closer to the firmed cost rather than just solar.
30
There is positive economic impact though through all the roofing repairs to fix 10-15 year old roofing penetrations. Conveniently also similar to the service life of roofing silicone.
50
A pastoral property manager told me that solar panels installed at bore water storage to power the pump rarely last even ten years in the heat and dusty conditions
50
Thing is, as always , it depends. If he has a good supplier/contractor they would have installed robust panels n surrounding stuff that can last out there. Like the diff between milspec and consumer grade stuff. Want it to work at 50C under 2 metres of mud or someone dies? Don’t buy consumer grade.
When we looked at solar our eventual supplier said “look, our quote will be 30% more than anyone else’s, but you won’t see as again for a very long time in regard to solar at least” and so it has been
Our neighbour went cheap. His panel mounts werent even screwed into battens, just through roofing metal sheets. Oh boy
30
Yet another example of the very poor planning or lack thereof for Labor original RET 32% during the Rudd-Gillard governments terms is rooftop solar and apparently no consideration for what is now a major problem of grid overload in the middle of daytimes with the Sun overhead, approximately from 10.00 am to 2.00 pm. AEMO have in recent years been lobbying for rooftop solar to be for installed premises use only.
And the engineering principle of maximum 30% for installed “renewable” intermittent, unreliable, supply sources has been ignored by Albanese-Bowen Labor and raised to RET 82% plus since May 2022. Maximum 30% with 100% controllable supply back up.
50
My fingers are crossed that my solar panels and batteries will fail after 9 years.
My fingers are also crossed that the supplier is still honouring their 10 year guarantee at that time.
I have come late to this discussion on the life of solar panels. The panels on our 10kw solar system in the paddock are around 14 years old now with no panel failures so far. Only one inverter appeared to be failing, so that we acquired a replacement backup, but is now performing as usual. Go figure.
I hope I am not jinxing us! We are now preparing to have a reasonable size battery installed for all the reasons noted on this site – plus my fear that China will act on their threat re Taiwan within 12 months & we may not be able to get fuel for our generator.
80
I live in Maine, obviously a northern clime. Politicians got involved with “green energy”, which is the only reason it exists. At the state level, Maine implemented subsidies for solar parks. They are now everywhere. AND…we have the 2nd/3rd highest electricity rates in the US, right behind Hawaii, and usually tied with California for 2nd place.
Out of state developers come in, offer leases to folks that own plots of land that are “idle”, i.e. not being farmed, cuz we’ve already screwed that part of our economy, and build out solar “parks”. They collect the subsidies and the money flows out of state. People can “sign on” to SOLAR, and get a 10% reduction in their bill, if there is solar capacity available at that time.
The “regular” electric company, Central Maine Power, has been forced by the legislature to charge rate payers enough to pay the subsidies to the solar developers.
So the average family now has an electric bill of 200-300-600 or more dollars.
There’s roughly 800,000 “dwellings” in our state. I have asked media outlets to do a bit of journalism and research the permits for the solar parks. They always bill them as “This project will provide enough electricity for 10,000 homes”. It would be great to add every one of these applications up to see how many homes should be getting free electricity at this point. I’ll be it’s half.
The politicians have been so clever at this game, that people yell at the top of their lungs, complaining about CMP and how they’re making millions off the backs of the rate payers, and they THANK GOD that we have solar, because think of how bad it would be without it!!!???!
And when they start to fail, it will be due to some other totally unrelated issue caused by Trump. No idea what they’ll come up with, but “TRUMP!!!” is all they’ll have to yell to mollify the masses.
It’s truly embarassing. We live in a building that was a small church. We renovated it into our “retirement home”. Liquid Propane, or LPG, is our main fuel. Gas stove, highly efficient condensing gas combi boiler providing heat and hot water. We had a few dollars left so we bought a hot tub to help soothe these worn out vessels. I closed it down at the beginning of Dec. because our electric bill for 2 people, 1 corgi, and 4 cats was $475. Pickling the hot tub dropped it to $300.
We are at roughly 45degN of latitude. So we’re pretty much halfway between the equator and the North pole. We get less than 9hrs of daylight during the winter equinox. It also snows here. Yet people believe this is not only a viable source of energy, they think it’s the BEST source of energy, and we need more of it.
I live among truly delusional people.
110
I wonder if they looked at where and who – or maybe Hoo – made the panels to see if there is any correlation.
20
Jo’s article shared by Owen Gregorian today on X: https://x.com/OwenGregorian/status/2020142641686442143
20
So solar panels are not designed to survive the conditions that will get the best performance out of them – clear, dry, sunny days?
40
I would never own a house with solar panels on the roof. If I wanted to buy a house with solar on the roof, I would demand that the panels and the associated electronics be removed, or reduce the selling price of the house by $20,000.
Because that’s what it would cost me to do it.
40
What I see on that graph is that the data comes from a mix of two populations (two brands? two types of solar panels? …): one with small degradation and another with a large one.
10
The opposite is true!
While there is no definitive global database tracking the exact percentage of 1990s solar panels still in operation, recent longitudinal studies indicate that the vast majority of these systems are likely still functioning at high capacity. Research conducted in Switzerland and France on grid-connected systems installed between 1987 and 1993 shows that most panels are still reliably producing electricity after more than 30 years, often exceeding their original 25-to-30-year manufacturer warranties.
00