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Question from Blaine: Today’s “Rick’s Tech Tips Newsletter” was sponsored by a company selling used solar panels.
I’ve actually been pricing solar panels for a while with an eye towards taking a small hunting cabin that I own off-grid.
I checked out the used panels offered by your advertiser SanTan Solar and their prices are only a fraction of the cheapest prices that I’ve been able to find for new panels.
I have a couple of questions for you if you don’t mind:
1 – Do used solar panels work as good as new ones?
2 – How long will used ones last if I buy them?
Rick’s answer: Those are great questions Blaine, and I’ll be happy to answer them for you as best I can.
For the sake of clarity, I’ll answer your second question first…
The ability of all solar panels to produce electric power slowly diminishes over time, and there’s no getting around that. The good news is they maintain most of their power generation capability for many years.
In fact, most solar panels are guaranteed to supply at least 80% of their maximum rated power for up to 25 years. That’s a quarter of a century.
According to SanTan Solar’s FAQs page, the used solar panels they sell are typically from 5-10 years old. That means you can probably expect any panels you buy from them to still be producing at least 80% of their rated power production after you’ve had them for as long as 20 years.
That’s pretty awesome when you consider how little you paid for the used panels up front compared to what you would have had to pay for new ones of a similar capacity and grade.
What’s more, even when the panels reach that 80% efficiency level they’ll still keep producing power, possibly for many more years. As long as solar panels keep producing a substantial amount of power they are still quite usable, regardless of their age.
While there might come a time when you’ll need to augment your existing solar array(s) by adding a few additional panels in order to keep producing the amount of power you need, your existing panels will likely still be usable for many years after their rated 25 year “lifetimes” have elapsed.
If you do end up needing to add a few more panels in the future, you can always get used panels and save a ton of money on them as well.
And now, back to your first question…
In reality, the answer to the first question lies in the answer I provided for the second one.
Do used solar panels work as good as new ones? The short answer is no, for the reason stated above. All solar panels lose a tiny bit of their efficiency every year so brand new ones will always outperform used ones to a certain degree.
But that being said, in my humble opinion the money you would save over time by installing used panels upfront instead of new ones far outweighs the relatively small reduction in efficiency you’ll get from the used panels.
Bottom line: If the upfront cost of your solar panel array(s) is your primary concern, I believe you would come out way ahead in both the short and long run by installing used panels instead of the much more expensive new ones, even if you end up having to add a few used panels to your array some years down the road.