{"id":71053,"date":"2023-02-13T05:38:48","date_gmt":"2023-02-12T19:08:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/?p=71053"},"modified":"2023-02-13T05:38:48","modified_gmt":"2023-02-12T19:08:48","slug":"solar-inverter-life-expectancy-mb2825","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/solar-inverter-life-expectancy-mb2825\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s The Life Expectancy Of A Solar Inverter?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Solar<\/p>\n

Researchers in Switzerland have been keeping an eye on a bunch of old solar inverters and power optimizers to see how they are faring; with some interesting results.<\/p>\n

Solar panels tend to steal the limelight, but the real workhorse of a PV system is the solar inverter<\/a>. This device takes all the DC output of the panels and converts it to AC for use in the home and export to the grid. It carries out this task day-in, day-out under all sorts of challenging environmental conditions.<\/p>\n

As it’s the component under the most strain, the inverter is also the one most likely to fail first. Buying cheaper good quality solar\u00a0 panels<\/a> is fine, but cutting corners on inverter quality can lead to disappointment down the track.<\/p>\n

While 25 year product warranties for solar panels are becoming increasingly common at the cheaper end of the spectrum, standard inverter warranties tend to be far less generous even among the top-end brands. For example, a top quality inverter brand is Fronius; but Fronius inverters only come with a 10 year product warranty (5 years full + 5 years parts only).<\/p>\n

So, how long do inverters last generally?<\/p>\n

The Answer: It’s Complicated<\/h2>\n

Boffins at Switzerland’s Bern University of Applied Sciences have been seeking an answer to this question.<\/p>\n

Their research incorporates 1,195 PV systems consisting of 2,121 inverters and 8,542 optimizers installed in Switzerland. An optimizer is a type of Module Level Power Electronics (MLPE), aka Panel Level Optimisation<\/a> (PLO), device added to one or multiple solar panels in a system to maximise panel output. These devices are used in addition to a string inverter. Not all systems in this study have optimizers.<\/p>\n

Most of the inverters part of this research were from the following brands:<\/p>\n