LeTID: Limited in new PERC panels from reputable manufacturers and probably not a disaster for old ones.

Fourteen months ago I wrote about a type of solar panel degradation called LeTID.  This is short for Light and elevated Temperature Induced Deterioration.  It’s also Norwegian for “laugh time” which is what I think they called the Joker movie over there. [Read more…]

Astronergy, Canadian, Longi, & REC Do Well but PID Still A Problem

PV Evolution Labs, or PVEL for short, has published their 2020 PV Module Reliability Scorecard.  This annual report reveals the Top Performers from their latest round of solar panel testing.  The information given is limited.  We’re only told which panels suffered little deterioration from testing. PVEL do not reveal which performed poorly.  They do not even reveal all the panels that were tested.  But it’s still useful to know which did well.

If you buy a solar panel that was a Top Performer in all four tests you can be confident it’s going to last for decades. [Read more…]

Have solar panel optimiser manufacturers been too optimistic in their performance claims? A Danish study says optimisers can be the opposite of optimal.

Solar systems hate shade.  They really do.  Sometimes they talk to me in my dreams and it’s always their number one complaint, right after being pooped on by birds.  But these two problems are related — they hate bird poop because it shades their solar cells. [Read more…]

Under 10 degrees tilt? Try groovy solar panels made by Winaico (and others).

It’s really bucketing down here in Queensland right now.  I’m relieved because until this evening there was a remote but real possibility of everything going all orange and wavy and really hot.  I have friends coming over from Taiwan and I’d be most dreadfully embarrassed if all we had to offer them was a fine selection of ashes. [Read more…]

HT-SAAE: not a bunch of random letters, but a Chinese government owned company that has manufactured panels for use in Australia, space and other weird places.

I have two pieces of good news about HT-SAAE solar panels I’m just dying to tell you.  They are:

1. No one’s going to get mad if you call them HT panels for short.
2. The product warranty for panels sold in Australia has increased from 10 to 12 years.

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UPDATE: January 3, 2022. This blog post is a couple of years old. The product warranty on HT-SAAE solar panels has since been boosted again a couple of times, most recently to 25 years. The latest warranty document (as at January 3, 2022) can be found here.
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Good news, friends!  I’ve discovered a new solar panel manufacturer site full of bizarre English!  It is brilliant!  I haven’t been this happy since since the days when Risen Energy boasted about having a blue ocean strategy instead of a red ocean where the fish keep biting each other. [Read more…]

Hyundai have increased the product warranty of their solar panels from 12 to 25 years!  O frabjous dai! Hyun! Hyai!

I have great news for anyone who wants a 25 year product warranty on their solar panels but doesn’t want to pay big bucks to get it.  On the first of this month Hyundai Energy Solutions increased their product warranty in Australia from 12 to 25 years.¹

[Read more…]

Backsheet failures from the field. Images: Crap Solar FB Page

On the 19th of June DuPont, the world’s largest chemical company, released their Global PV Reliability 2019 Field Analysis report.  It contains disturbing news on the reliability of plastic backsheets used for solar panels. [Read more…]

A new Module Reliability Scorecard was published earlier this month.  It reveals the sadistic practices of a standards organization that subjected solar panels to torturous tests so they could announce which ones came out on top. [Read more…]