My home Solar system (approx 10 years old) has stopped working completely and is generating no power according to the inverter. Would it be worth getting it checked or should I just go ahead and get a new system installed from one of the recent deals. Also will I need to hire someone to remove old panels or do installers also offer removal of old panel. My old system was a cheap chinese system so I doubt they are repairable.
What to Do When Solar Panels Stop Working
DOGGYWOWWOW on 12/08/2022 - 19:05
Last edited 12/08/2022 - 20:26
Last edited 12/08/2022 - 20:26
Comments
What will they do with the old one, does it have any value?
None
You'll either have to dispose of it, try and sell off the old panels for a $10s of dollars each, or pay them to dispose of themNo idea why that got negd
10 year old solar system parts are not valuable.
You'll be lucky to get $50 a panel on gumtree if they work, to someone who wants to put it on a caravan or somethingA 10 year old inverter is a paperweight
I've gone through this exact process in the past (and the old solar system on the house I bought wasn't even 10yrs old)
@SBOB: What is a caravan going to do with 50 or 100w panels? They could just buy new 300w panels for like $100-$200
What is a caravan going to do with 50 or 100w panels
Are you assuming panel output loss as 10 years ago panels would have been ~200w. Even with degradation, it's not a 50w panel
And I'm going from experience. I sold my old panels for about $40-50 each (which were old 200w panels from an old removed system)
Go check all the grey nomads with old solar panels permanently mounted on their setups, most aren't going and buying new
@redfox1200: 10yo panels tend to be 190W. 180W worst case. They still happily put out 150+ (usually >175 W in my experience).
Cheapest bang for buck, and domestic panels are very robust. Fill a caravan with solar for $200.
@HelpMeiCantSee: I've still got my old 175W panels from when the government was footing the bill for 1KW systems, around 2010 I think. (Was going to use for off-grid power for lighting in the shed, but still haven't built the shed :)
They did about 7 years on the roof before we upgraded to a system that could actually power a kettle, but was surprised when I recently hooked one up to my Victron and it was putting out 195W.
@bamzero: They’re amazing on single low voltage mppt, so so underrated. Plus Victron is hands down the best
Into landfill it goes. Nice.
Not only do they have no value, they are a huge problem. Councils are desperate for a solution, as dumps will quickly be overfilled with end of life solar panels.
I reckon there will be some kind of fees or taxes put in place soon.
So much for being clean, green , renewable energy!
It's hard to imagine that end of life solar panels could even be remotely comparable to the amount of other waste generated every day though.
Imagine the volume of ten years of household waste for example. 500+ full rubbish bags.
@trapper: I'm sure the volume of general waste is a concern too, but apparently it's manageable (and we are already paying for that it rates + charges for trips to tip).
However, most general waste is in some way disposable. (Bury it for a while.) The stuff that isn't, we've made a big deal of. e.g. ban the plastic bags. Bottles must be recyclable.But not solar panels: "Go for it - they're green. We'll save the world."
10-20 years later: "oh crap they're not disposable or recyclable? Who forgot that requirement?"They'd be banned if we weren't so gung-ho on renewable energy.
Most inverters only have a life span of 10 years, particularly the ones being sold 10 years ago. Your solar panels should easily be good for at least another decade unless they're damaged in some way.
title tho
Well if it only took 7 days to create it then surely a patch up wouldn't be too much effort?
Eventually the earth will spiral out of its orbit and we will freeze over
then we move to the outback
Eventually the earth will spiral out of its orbit and we will freeze over
The sun will expand into a red giant and roast us (and probably consume us) long before that could ever happen.
Call the original installer,they can check it out and see what's failed. Might as well find out your options, maybe there's just one broken circuit that's preventing the whole thing from working.
Call the original installer
They had to return home when COVID hit and we closed our borders.
Solar should last 20 years.
Panels should.
Inverters, 10 years is acceptable.
What to Do When Solar System Stops Working
Extinction.
These things won't matter anymore: underpaid, no insurance, inflation, cash-on-collect, dog-poo-on-nature-strip, etc…
Nah if we can just figure out how to travel at 99.999999% the speed of light by the time this solar system stops working, our relative time would slow down and we can travel to Alpha Centauri in 5 years and find a suitable alternative abode with multiple suns!
Traveling to Alpha Centauri at 99.999999% of the speed of light would only take 5.4 hours from the perspective of the traveller. :)
Got to love how physics has left just enough we can work with to make interstellar travel theoretically possible… it's that glimmer of hope to inspire us to technologically advance for the infinite longevity of life as we know it… despite knowing the earth and sun's time is finite :)
@MrFrugalSpend: Unfortunately it's not theoretically possible to travel anything near that speed though.
What to Do When Solar System Stops Working
get it fixed.
My old system was a cheap chinese system so I doubt they are repairable.
Check the easy stuff like all the breakers are on and that none have tripped. Otherwise being 10yrs old it most likely is only a small unit, so might be time to get a bigger new one.
My mate had a similar issue. He got a suitable level sparkie off airtasker or similar to install a replacement inverter. Was $600 including the inverter and has been fine for a couple of years.
Probably just one panel, a wire broken or the inverter thats defective. No need to replace the whole lot that would be stupid. Get someone in to diagnose the problem.
Landfill 😂😷🤫
If you are in Qld and getting the 50 cent fit you might need to do the maths for your usage to compare how repairing the old system and keeping the fit compares to a new system and much lower fit.
Check gumtree for second hand parts and if they are cheap enough buy them and see if it fixes the issue once you find a qualified person to replace the parts.
wait, are you checking your solar panel efficiency at night time? check during the day.
Mate if your solar tariffs are any good I would suggest you get a sparkie to check it out and with a bit of luck you might just need inverter replacement. Otherwise invest in a new system with higher generating capacity. The new panels generate almost double energy for the size.
Be ware that the sparkie will most likely tell you that the system you have is not to code and should be replaced. The thing is that it refers to the current code which has changed from the one ten years ago but it does not make it unsafe or illegal.
I got my solar system early, and still have the high feed in tariff from way back then. If I replace or upgrade my system I lose that. So if my system stopped generating power I'd at least get someone suitably qualified to check to see if it wasn't something obvious and easy and cheap to fix. But if it wasn't obvious and cheap and easy to fix, a decade old solar system isn't worth fixing. Panels keep working forever, but they produce less and less power every year. Especially early ones. Especially cheap ones. And inverters are consumer grade electronics with an expected life of about 12 years, and the parts are often not available to fix the older models. That said, if its the inverter you might be able to get one cheap that's still working, and swap it for your broken one. A lot are available because a lot of people are pulling old small systems off their roof and replacing them with new big systems.
So if its worth it to retain a good feed in tariff, or you want to take the bet its easily fixable, get someone to look at it. Otherwise just replace it it with a new much bigger system.
Small solar is better than no solar. I hate the idea of this stuff going to landfill! It’s 99% repairable, but a matter of cost effectiveness and will to spend money on maintenance.
Depending on make/model of the equipment it’ll likely be easy to fix
Solar panel efficiency does degrade over time but maybe not as much as someone who wants to sell a new solar panel may say. OP's are likely still worth using - check in your electricity bill how much was generated before the system failed. The fault may be a panel, in the wiring or the inverter. Replacing the whole system won't make any financial sense, especially if it means that you subsequently get a lower FIT. When you contact a sparkie, let them know you're getting a few quotes for it's repair.
If more people opted to fix rather than replace, it would improve the economics of fixing stuff; More tradies/techs would be encouraged to find and fix a fault, diagnostic and repair information and spare parts would be more readily available and cheaper. I imagine generations after us would wonder; "people used to bury stuff in landfill and thought it would go away???"
Firstly, have you tried turning it off and turning it on again?
With that out of the away, it's likely the inverter that's failed, the solar panels are much less likely to fail.
So there's a good chance you can get another inverter installed and be on your way.
Of course after 10 years you'll know whether the existing was enough for your needs. If not, it might be time to get a bigger system installed anyway.
With FITs decreasing also consider panel placement. 10 years ago it was probably all north facing but you might be better off splitting and having some facing west (and/or east) to extend your usable solar time.Unfortunately old gear is pretty worthless to most as already said above, the panels are likely sub 200W and degraded and the inverter (if it worked) probably wouldn't comply with new legislation so wouldn't legally be able to installed on a new site.
My solar panels have stopped working 2-3 years ago. I got a quote for $300 or so for a technician to come and check it out. I decided not to do anything with it.
Two days ago, I received an email from EnergyAustralia:
Solar Feed-in Tariff.
Your solar flat feed-in tariff (FiT) will decrease from 1 September 2022.My original feed-in tariff is already very low. To reduce it even further, I wonder if it's still worth the trouble by having solar panels.
If your feed in tariff is lower than your cost to use, then you're likely better off using the solar and not exporting it.
One way is by getting a battery, but you need to calculate the cost and return on that.
The other way is to just use the electricity before it gets exported to the grid - do your washing, laundry, hot water system on a timer during the day when you're generating power.
No there's no point on having a broken system on the roof lol
There's little if any point in having solar for the feed-in tariff. Solar panels are designed to reduce your own power bills by reducing the amount of power you have to buy from the grid.
Get it looked at.
My problem turned out to be a possum had made a nest under the panels & chewed one of the wires.
My solar system dropped to only producing 1/2 its rated power…fortunately it still had a month of warranty left - so got it replaced for free. I bet the installer that it was probably the capacitors that had died…which he confirmed, said he could definitely smell the whiff of dead cap on opening the box. unmistakeable. So…for the DIY enthusiast who has great respect for things that can kill you in a heartbeat (or lack of one)… and a modicum of electronics skill, they could be a lot of fun. Though you might want to have a bit of space, like a farm and a fairly negligent local council.
Sorry mate dead cap don't give out smell because they dry out over time so there will be nothing to let out when they are dead. At most they buldge and swell sometimes crack open. Also, there will be huge copper plane under the caps for high current capacity your DIY average enthusiast will find it very hard to desolder the caps because of the huge thermal mass. Most DIY soldering home setup is under 120watts you will need IR heating assist or a temp controlled hot air system to properly desolder the parts without toasting nearby parts, and localised heat that cause extreme expansion to the board and copper traces.
Before putting the new caps to work you also need to do capacitor forming. Most inverters has capacitors in parallel and strings because of they are mounted vertically to save space. So they need to be capacitance and IR matched otherwise the switching will be imbalance and cause the MOSFETs to work harder and overheat.
There's lots of consideration to go into dense high power circuits repair it's not just a simple <300watts computer motherboard capacitor fix.
I do board level repair.
I just went through the exact process, reply if you are interested
What inverter do you have? You may be able to get an error code and work out if it is worth repairing.
Bruh, my car stopped working, I'll just get a new one. I won't get anyone to look at it. (Just ran out of fuel)
Same principle really….My car stopped working. I got someone to look at it. It cost me to do that. And their quote to actually fix it was huge. Far more than the car is worth. One major part isn't available in Australia any longer, and a replacement would have to be sourced from the car's country of manufacture, if they've got one. But, hey, I ought to get it fixed, not simply junk it, no matter that it'd be a better use of my money to put that much towards buying a new one, right?
That's nice, at least you got someone to look at it other than binning it straight away.
Untold truth about solar is the longevity and what to do once the panels / electronics start to go out.
Disposal and recycling is non-existent. The government (and people) only care about the now. It's basically plastic bottles all over again…
The cells themselves are very cheap, in fact maybe total to 3-5% of the whole panel price. It's the warranty, middleman and logistics that's taxing. If you have the time and skill you can disassemble and resolder new cells and reseal the panels with EVA sheets by heat and vacuum. That will put it back to service for another two decades. This is happening in poorer countries like Africa but labour is too expensive for this to happen in Australia. So we had to resort to the throwaway society at most recycle the precious aluminium frame.
The inverters are cheap and easy fix if you find the right company.
If you had high quality older gear, it might still be under warranty. If it’s generic and cheap. You could try buying an other inverter on gumtree/Facebook market place to troubleshoot. Shouldn’t be too expensive.
My installer tried to charge me to get rid of my solar system. But I put it on Gumtree and managed to offload the whole kit for $50. I was happy that someone was able to get some use out of it.
Mine failed recently, turned out one of the connectors on the roof had corroded and was making no contact. Quick Google revealed that they were surprisingly cheap so ordered a new one, isolated the panel it was connected to (didn't feel like dying), crimped it on and it's up and running again
Check what you bought, it may be still under warranty.
The higher range on life for panels would be around 20 years. So depending on the rated performance and how it was performing before it stopped.
If it was still going well it may be worth getting a quote on repair.
I have two mates that are sparkies, and they say that about 25% of their work is fixing older solar setups - both suggest getting a) the panels cleaned as build up of dirt will drop efficiency, and b) getting them looked at by an electrician from time to time. In a previous home we found that Pigeons had started nesting underneath our panels - Pigeon poo carries all sorts of nasty diseases and is also corrosive on electricals, and metal roofs. He had ours pigeon-proofed.
Repair for sure. The panels should still be fine.
Also, I wouldn't be at all surprised for a solar seller to try to sell you a complete system even if you don't need it.
A new installer will remove an old one, but at a cost. It takes time/effort
At 10yrs old it's likely the inverter but whether it's cost beneficial to replace that, compared to a new system.
At that age i'm assuming it's a relatively low kw system and likely paid itself off multiple times over with the high fit bonuses that were available then, so I'd likely be looking at a new system instead of repair