Solar Panels are they all the same?

Different Tier’s of Solar Panels

Most if not all residential solar installers use a tier one solar panel, but they are not all the same. Warranties on solar panels all have 3 main categories, 1. Power Production Warranty, 2. A Panel Warranty and a 3. Labor Warranty.

Power Production Warranty: Most panel manufactures offer a power production warranty of 25 years, this directly correlates to the degredation rate of the panels, most tier one panels guarantee 82%-87% of power production vs year one at year 25. The top panels on the market are at 92% at year 25.

Panel Warranty: Most of the tier one manufactures offer a 25 year panel warranty, but some only offer a 12-15 year warranty on the product being free from defects.

Labor Warranty: Only two panel manufactures offer a labor warranty, REC and Sunpower, this covers the cost associated with a warranty claim for the first two warranty reasons.

Why does a labor warranty matter? Imagine you have a solar panel that has an issue, and it is covered under the power production or panel warranty. but it costs you several hundred dollars to remove and send off to get a replacement of a new panel. What’s the point of something being covered under warranty if you have to pay out of pocket for it!

The panels we use!

We use solar panels by REC for a variety of reasons. #1 is the Pro-Trust Warranty, have a panel manufacturer that covers labor, power production and the panels themselves for 25 years is important in providing the best to our homeowners. The second is with every solar install each home owner gets a warranty registration certificate that lists the serial numbers of the panels that are used on the project.

REC also manufactures its panels in an entirely robotic manufacturing process which allows them to have such a low error rate. In a Study from 2016 - 2019, 4 million panels were manufactured of those only 400 had issues.

We utilize the REC ALPHA 400W panel, it has the lowest degradation rate and is guarantied to produce 92% of the power at year 25!