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Old 09-09-13, 06:42 PM   #32
Robaroni
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Originally Posted by MN Renovator View Post
PV modules are warranted to produce at least 80% of their rating 20 years down the line. I'd imagine they very rarely need to be replaced due to losing that much. There was a Home Power magazine article of a few people who were Back to the Land type folks who bought PV a very long time ago who said their early panels produce well many decades later. I always see this "20-30 year lifespan" crap in articles where people are talking about PV, if one module really crapped out and you had to bypass it in a string you'd only lose that panel. It's when you lose an inverter and you need to replace it that you need to put some money into it but my local PV installer has only seen issues with two Enphase microinverters and no issues with the large name brand string inverters he has installed over the years. I expect a system to have the lifespan of the house they are installed in with maybe a component or two that might need to be replaced on a very infrequent basis. It's not much different than a component on a car going out, the whole car doesn't die.

On another note, you said that your DIY install was about half of the $7.50/watt quote. Can you break down the costs, roughly for what you put into the system, I'm trying to get a rough estimate of what I'd expect to pay for my installation to know if I'll be getting a fair price.
Hi,
Sure, I installed the system a couple of years ago and I filed the receipts with my tax papers but I think it went somewhat like this:

28 Bosch 230 watt modules ~$480 each total = 6.44Kw
28 SolarEdge microinverters ~$82 each
1 SolarEdge main panel $1600.00
racking ~$1300
wire, permits, inspections, meters, etc. ~$600

Total came to about $19,200.00

My coop gave me $3.00 a watt 3 x 6.44 = $19,320

I did just have a failure with one of my microinverters. We had lightening recently so this may have caused it but I honestly don't know, I think the mtbf (mean time between failures) is something like 100 years but it did fail. They sent it out free.

If you ask me the best company is Outback. boy they are great! My inverters were initially just off grid (VFX3648 x 2). I wanted to convert them to off grid/intertie (GVFX3648) and Outback did it for the cost of shipping! Not only that, they have been in for 6 or 7 years without so much as a hiccup. Not as efficient as the microinverters but microinverters can't double as off grid power if the grid dies so living with the trade off is not a problem to me as I like the ability to run if the grid goes down which it does here several times a year.
Rob
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