Reliability characteristics of first-tier photovoltaic panels for agrivoltaic systems – practical consequences

A vast majority of PV panel suppliers declare a PV panel lifetime in the range of 20-30 years (typically 25 years).Our data from long-term monitoring of many PV power plants indicate that first-tier PV panels at many PV power plants, in moderate climate, start to fail after about 10-12 years.Compared to standard PV systems, the agrivoltaic systems are exposed to extraordinary influences of agriculture like dust, humidity, vibrations, fertilizers etc.Our studies compare the quality of PV panel components within last 25 years.We performed long-term monitoring of 85 PV plants, including agrivoltaics, worldwide too.PV panel failures within strings cause subsequent damage to multistring inverters.As inverters are more expensive than the PV panels, the total expenses for PV panel and PV inverter replacement are growing quickly after 10-12 years of the PV power plant operation.Hence, it is very important to study the reliability characteristics of PV panels to predict their real lifetime and to predict PV power plant service expenses.K e y w o r d s: photovoltaics,