Solar panels systems are generally maintenance free. Unless you have a single or double axis ground-mounted tracker (which has a few moving parts and different sensors), your basic checks should include:
- Making sure the inverters are on and operating normally;
- Your solar panels energy production numbers meet or exceed estimates;
- Cleaning your solar panels (maybe);
- Installing critter guard to protect solar panels wiring and prevent nesting.
Two solar panels produce less energy than the rest
Inverters
There are typically 2 main types of inverters installed in residential solar panels systems in Ontario: string inverters and microinverters. In order to check their performance, you don’t have to climb up on the roof or go through all of the settings and different messages on the face panel. Most of the inverters today come with their own software monitoring system allowing you to check on their status with a click of a mouse!
String inverter monitoring software
Solar panels
Solar panels are designed to last minimum 35-40 years, but usually come with a 25 years standard warranty for power output, 10-12 years product warranty, and perform as follows:
- During the first year of operation the power output should be no less 95-97.5%
- From year 2 to 25 solar panels will degrade by approximately 0.6-0.8% per year, so at the end of their warranty the actual power output will be no less than 80% of the labelled power output.
Here’s how the solar panels degradation will affect your 10 kWp solar panels system power production over 20 years:
If you start noticing something wrong with your system: inverter goes offline, there’s a sudden drop in your system’s performance, one or a few solar panels stop producing energy, etc. give us a call or fill out a request form, and we would be happy to help!
