Solar panels failing after 2 years!

[elektra]

In another blow to "Renewable" Energy, Solar Panels are failing after 2 years of use. Everything we are told about Solar Power being Clean, Green, Renewable, that lasts forever is a lie.

I must thank Matthew, ClosedCaption, and Old Crock for requesting this thread. Here you go "boys", read it and weep.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/29/b...lar-powers-dark-side.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

LOS ANGELES — The solar panels covering a vast warehouse roof in the sun-soaked Inland Empire region east of Los Angeles were only two years into their expected 25-year life span when they began to fail.

Coatings that protect the panels disintegrated while other defects caused two fires that took the system offline for two years, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost revenues.

2 year old article- and what is the cause for the failure according to the article?

“We need to face up to the fact that corners are being cut,” said Conrad Burke, general manager for DuPont’s billion-dollar photovoltaic division, which supplies materials to solar manufacturers.

The solar developer Dissigno has had significant solar panel failures at several of its projects, according to Dave Williams, chief executive of the San Francisco-based company.

“I don’t want to be alarmist, but I think quality poses a long-term threat,” he said. “The quality across the board is harder to put your finger on now as materials in modules are changing every day and manufacturers are reluctant to share that information.”

Nothing about the technology itself being bad in the article.

Solar Panels are good for home values though

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/22/realestate/solar-panels-and-home-values.html?_r=0

New research sponsored by theDepartment of Energyshows that buyers are willing to pay more for homes with rooftop solar panels — a finding that may strengthen the case for factoring the value of sustainable features into home appraisals.

???

And what happened the last time Fannie Mae overvalued homes? Now its proposed that the cost of Solar be financed for 30 years, as part of our mortgage, Energy the Demorats dictate we must buy. Homes already average around $500k in California, sounds like the Demorats simply think rich.


http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/22/realestate/solar-panels-and-home-values.html?_r=0

Fannie Mae has acknowledged the growing proliferation of solar. In December, the government-sponsored institution issued a guideline specifying that if a house has an owned solar system, the appraiser should analyze the system and the market to see if it adds value.

 

[Muhammed]

The moral of this thread: Don't buy cheap Chinese crap.

Solar panels aren't cheap. Mine work great!

All solar panels are not created equal. Some are awesome and others are crap.

 

[Andylusion]

Well, when you go with the lowest bidder, without looking at the past record of that bidder, this is what you get. Will it affect the manufactures of defective panels? Yes. Will it affect those with a good record? No. Just shake out the less reputable manufacturors. Happens with every new product.

True.... but you have to also factor in that it was explicitly because of these supposed new lower costs, that everyone was claiming solar panels are now cost effective. When they shake out all the bad manufacturers, the price will rise. Suddenly your cost-effective solar, isn't so cost effective anymore, when they make them with expensive higher quality controls.

 

[Andylusion]

Solar Panels on Tampa Courthouse Fail to Meet Promises

Great article showing they will never recover the costs.

Seems your link is Media Trackers which is a conservative (pro big business) site.

Why no pictures of the panels?

Why no answer to the question; Why aren't the panels delivering as promised?

Why no information of nearby solar on what they are providing? Is it a location issue?

FYI: I own a new condo on South Beach. The building has solar to provide 80% of the common power which what it does.

Lots of why's in your 'great article.'

Proving leftist can't click on links. Did you actually click on the links the article cites? Because you and read right from the governments own website, exactly what the article says.

Of course not. That's too hard for you. I had to do that for you.

SO the claims are accurate, and sourced directly from the Florida governments own website. Now what is your excuse? I know you have one coming, because you never admit you are wrong, but just attack other posters.

 

[depotoo]

Dems dictate what one must buy so they may profit from it.

In another blow to "Renewable" Energy, Solar Panels are failing after 2 years of use. Everything we are told about Solar Power being Clean, Green, Renewable, that lasts forever is a lie.

I must thank Matthew, ClosedCaption, and Old Crock for requesting this thread. Here you go "boys", read it and weep.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/29/b...lar-powers-dark-side.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

LOS ANGELES — The solar panels covering a vast warehouse roof in the sun-soaked Inland Empire region east of Los Angeles were only two years into their expected 25-year life span when they began to fail.

Coatings that protect the panels disintegrated while other defects caused two fires that took the system offline for two years, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost revenues.

2 year old article- and what is the cause for the failure according to the article?

“We need to face up to the fact that corners are being cut,” said Conrad Burke, general manager for DuPont’s billion-dollar photovoltaic division, which supplies materials to solar manufacturers.

The solar developer Dissigno has had significant solar panel failures at several of its projects, according to Dave Williams, chief executive of the San Francisco-based company.

“I don’t want to be alarmist, but I think quality poses a long-term threat,” he said. “The quality across the board is harder to put your finger on now as materials in modules are changing every day and manufacturers are reluctant to share that information.”

Nothing about the technology itself being bad in the article.

Solar Panels are good for home values though

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/22/realestate/solar-panels-and-home-values.html?_r=0

New research sponsored by theDepartment of Energyshows that buyers are willing to pay more for homes with rooftop solar panels — a finding that may strengthen the case for factoring the value of sustainable features into home appraisals.

???

And what happened the last time Fannie Mae overvalued homes? Now its proposed that the cost of Solar be financed for 30 years, as part of our mortgage, Energy the Demorats dictate we must buy. Homes already average around $500k in California, sounds like the Demorats simply think rich.


http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/22/realestate/solar-panels-and-home-values.html?_r=0

Fannie Mae has acknowledged the growing proliferation of solar. In December, the government-sponsored institution issued a guideline specifying that if a house has an owned solar system, the appraiser should analyze the system and the market to see if it adds value.

 

[Old Rocks]

No, the market dictates who buys what. And fruitloops like you try to tell the market what to do because of ideology. You are a fool.

 

[Andylusion]

No, the market dictates who buys what. And fruitloops like you try to tell the market what to do because of ideology. You are a fool.

"the market" doesn't dictate anything.

In a Free-Market, consumers dictate who buys what, that's true.

But this is not a free-market.

Most states, including Ohio where I live, have mandated purchases of "Renewable Energy Certificates".

Now to understand how this works....

Say there is a solar power farm in Arizona. The Solar Farm produces over the course of time, 1 Gigawatt of power. The EPA issues a Renewable Energy Certificate, to the Solar Farm owner, for 1 Gigawatt of renewable energy produced. The Solar Farm owner can then sell this certificate on the 'market'.

Now, here in Ohio, we get very little sun, and thus can't generate gigawatts of renewable energy. Nevertheless, under a previous (democrap) governor, our power companies are required to produce a percentage of energy from renewable sources. For the sake of simplicity, let us say 1 Gigawatt of power.

The power company is required to produce a gigawatt of power, from a renewable source it doesn't have available to it. How then does it meet the requirement? Easy. They purchase a Renewable Energy Certificate, REC, on the market, which gives them credit as having produced the renewable energy, even if they did not.

So my power company, buys the REC for 1 Gigawatt, from Solar Farm in Arizona, and this is counted has having produced a Gigawatt of power from renewable energy sources, even if they have not produce a single watt from renewable energy sources.

Now obviously this drives up the cost of power, because my power company clearly has to pay money for power it is not getting. The actual power produced by the solar farm, is sold in Arizona. They don't send the power over 1,800 miles of power lines to Ohio, to power a few homes.

Thus our power company has to pay to produce the power used here, and pay for power it is NOT using, from Arizona.

Nothing in this scenario, would happen in a free market system. Not even close. No power company would voluntarily purchase credit for power it didn't produce, and never used, to give the illusion that it met some arbitrary goal of renewable energy generation.

You would never pay some guy who owned a Honda Prius, to get a certificate that says you used a fuel efficient vehicle.

Yet that's exactly what is happening in the "green-energy" market.

The only reason "the market"™ is building 'renewable energy', is because the government has mandated that they do so.

And the cost of this is insane. In fact, we here in Ohio, just found this out. Our state government recently put a freeze on the 'renewable energy mandates', because the cost was doing to drive huge price hikes on the public.

Ohio renewable energy and efficiency rules frozen for two years as Gov. John Kasich signs legislation cleveland.com

Bad plan. I wager in two years, they'll freeze the rules again, or start passing rate hikes. Or possibly change the mandates to be a fraction of what they are now.

 

[Liminal]

In another blow to "Renewable" Energy, Solar Panels are failing after 2 years of use. Everything we are told about Solar Power being Clean, Green, Renewable, that lasts forever is a lie.

I must thank Matthew, ClosedCaption, and Old Crock for requesting this thread. Here you go "boys", read it and weep.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/29/b...lar-powers-dark-side.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

LOS ANGELES — The solar panels covering a vast warehouse roof in the sun-soaked Inland Empire region east of Los Angeles were only two years into their expected 25-year life span when they began to fail.

Coatings that protect the panels disintegrated while other defects caused two fires that took the system offline for two years, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost revenues.

So then, if I follow your logic correctly, your little mind tells you that this means solar energy is a waste of time. Is that right professor?

 

[elektra]

In another blow to "Renewable" Energy, Solar Panels are failing after 2 years of use. Everything we are told about Solar Power being Clean, Green, Renewable, that lasts forever is a lie.

I must thank Matthew, ClosedCaption, and Old Crock for requesting this thread. Here you go "boys", read it and weep.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/29/b...lar-powers-dark-side.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

LOS ANGELES — The solar panels covering a vast warehouse roof in the sun-soaked Inland Empire region east of Los Angeles were only two years into their expected 25-year life span when they began to fail.

Coatings that protect the panels disintegrated while other defects caused two fires that took the system offline for two years, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost revenues.

So then, if I follow your logic correctly, your little mind tells you that this means solar energy is a waste of time. Is that right professor?

"If" is a big word for many who fail to grasp what they state. $46 Trillion dollars to be spent on Solar and Wind is a big waste of time and money when at the end of the day Solar can not provide the energy to build a Solar Panel or to pump the millions of gallons of water that Solar consumes annually.

One aspect of this failure is the pre-mature failures of Solar Panels and the components that make up the system.

Cost
Failures
Weak electrical output
Increased use of Coal
Increased use of Oil
Increased use of Water
Destruction of Vegetation
Destruction of Animals
Destruction of Birds
Increase of local temperatures

So many little things to consider, which your, "little mind" has never thought of, my OP is simply one that bugs you.

 

[Old Rocks]

Dumb fuck Elektra;

Failures, but the failures of the panels involve ruined panels, and some local fires, not the destruction of a whole river system as we have seen with fly ash spills and chemical spills from coal plants.

Weak electrical output. Just another Elektra lie. 2013, solar accounted for less than 1/2% of our power output, 2014, just over 1%. That is not weak, and that is not slow growth.

Increased use of coal
Increased use of oil Both just more Elektra lies.

Increased use of water. Another lie. A coal fired plant must have huge amounts of water for the steam generation for the turbines. A solar installation needs only a little once in a while for the cleaning of the panels.

Destruction of vegitation Hardly comparable to what is destroyed in strip mining and mountain top removal for coal.

Destruction of animals
Destruction of birds More lies from Elektra. Just how do non-moving PV panels destroy either? In fact, I bet you can find bird nests and animal dens in the shadows of the panels.

Increase in local temperatues Really? Care to explain that?

 

[Andylusion]

Dumb fuck Elektra;

Failures, but the failures of the panels involve ruined panels, and some local fires, not the destruction of a whole river system as we have seen with fly ash spills and chemical spills from coal plants.

Weak electrical output. Just another Elektra lie. 2013, solar accounted for less than 1/2% of our power output, 2014, just over 1%. That is not weak, and that is not slow growth.

Increased use of coal
Increased use of oil Both just more Elektra lies.

Increased use of water. Another lie. A coal fired plant must have huge amounts of water for the steam generation for the turbines. A solar installation needs only a little once in a while for the cleaning of the panels.

Destruction of vegitation Hardly comparable to what is destroyed in strip mining and mountain top removal for coal.

Destruction of animals
Destruction of birds More lies from Elektra. Just how do non-moving PV panels destroy either? In fact, I bet you can find bird nests and animal dens in the shadows of the panels.

Increase in local temperatues Really? Care to explain that?

Again though.... *IF* solar panels actually replaced coal burning power plants, *THEN* you would have a point. If you could show that installing these solar panels meant that we have shut down all our coal power plants, and there were no ruined rivers, fly ash spills and strip mining and blaw blaw blaw....

But you can't show that. The amount of power provided by solar panels is such a small fraction of the power needs, that there is not a single example anywhere of a power grid of any size, that the power produced by solar, allowed for the closure of coal power. Not one.

So all of the strip mining is still happening. All the fly ash, is still happening. All of the everything, that happened before, is still happening now.

True, coal as percentage of power has declined, but the numbers clearly show it is because we have moved towards natural gas, not solar. Solar is an insignificant source of power, that only exists because government is taxing the poor, and paying the rich, to provide solar power. Without those subsidies, screwing over the impoverished for the benefit of the wealthy, solar would cease to exist as a industrial power generation method.

Now perhaps in some distant future, where technology closes that gap, things will be different. But as for today, that's how it is.

Solar is insignificant, as a power source. Proving that is easy. If you shut off all the PV solar panels across the entire country, it wouldn't even cause a blip on the power grid. Coal, NatGas, and Nuclear power is more than enough to fill all the power needs of the nation. If you cut off Coal, or any other, there is no way Solar Panels could even attempt to make up the difference.

That's proof enough, that it is not significant.

 

[Old Rocks]

Well, Andy, ever read about the wheat grains and the chessboard? Perhaps you should look into that. Solar doubled it's capacity last year, and now accounts for about 1% of our electricity. A decade of that kind of growth, and there will be no coal mines in the US.

 

[American Horse]

Mine are still in excellent shape after 8 years.

Is your place enjoying shade a part of the day?

 

[rightwinger]

Drill baby, drill

 

[Delta4Embassy]

Photovoltaic Reliability and Failure Analysis: Enduring a ...http://www.ewh.ieee.org/r6/scv/eds/slides/2011-Feb-Alers-PV.pdf

Federally funded solar energy project falls short of projected savings - Story abcactionnews.com Tampa Bay News Weather Sports Things To Do WFTS-TV

Solar equipment failures spark demand for defective building material coverage Business Insurance

This industry article shows failure rates are climbing.

Solar Panels on Tampa Courthouse Fail to Meet Promises

Great article showing they will never recover the costs.

Seems your link is Media Trackers which is a conservative (pro big business) site.

Why no pictures of the panels?

Why no answer to the question; Why aren't the panels delivering as promised?

Why no information of nearby solar on what they are providing? Is it a location issue?

FYI: I own a new condo on South Beach. The building has solar to provide 80% of the common power which what it does.

Lots of why's in your 'great article.'

What dya expect? They're cheap plastic that's been laying out in the Sun for two years.

 

[rdean]

Republicans want stuff to fail. It makes them feel better about all their failures.

 

[rightwinger]

I love the kneejerk reaction from the right as they celebrate any perceived setback to alternative energy outside their beloved oil

 

[kiwiman127]

If solar energy was such a failure, why is the investment into solar energy leading the boom of renewable energy?
Solar power drives renewable energy investment boom in 2014
Global investment in clean energy jumped 16% in 2014, boosted by fast-growing solar power in the US and China. Solar, whose costs have plummeted in recent years, attracted over half the total funding for the first time.
The green energy market has been gloomy in recent years and the rise in investment is the first since 2011. But despite strong growth in most regions, only a series of large offshore wind farms stopped Europe going into reverse, while the Australian government’s antipathy to renewables saw investment there tumble by 35%.
The new figures, from Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF), show $310bn (£205bn) was ploughed into green energy last year, just short of the record $317bn in 2011. However, as green energy gets ever cheaper, the money invested in 2014 bought almost double the clean electricity capacity than in 2011.
“The investment bounce back in 2014 exceeded our expectations,” said Michael Liebreich, chairman of BNEF’s advisory board. “Solar was the biggest single contributor, thanks to the huge improvements in its cost-competitiveness over the last five years.”
Solar investment rose by 25% in 2014, while wind power rose 11% to comprise a third of all investment. Energy efficiency and electric vehicles rose 10%, including the $2.3bn Tesla Motors raised. But amid concerns over how green they actually are, biofuels investment fell 7% and biomass and incinerator projects attracted 10% less finance.
Solar power drives renewable energy investment boom in 2014 Environment The Guardian


If society had the mindset of the anti-renewable crowd, we'd still be in the Dark Ages.
The first nuclear plant was built in 1954. So nuclear energy has been around for 61 years. Has nuclear power been problem free? No.
First we have nuclear waste problems, yet to be solved. And then there's the possibility of things like the Chernobyl and the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disasters.
So in other words, after 61 years, nuclear power still has kinks to work out. It's not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. It seems Elektra and company, focus only on a few flaws of solar energy and ignore nuclear energy's own flaws. So what else is new?

.

 

[HenryBHough]

If you're 70 years old and hell-bent on saving money with solar panels should you buy the cheap 20 year panels or the lasts-a-lifetime panels which cost twice as much?

 

[Andylusion]

Well, Andy, ever read about the wheat grains and the chessboard? Perhaps you should look into that. Solar doubled it's capacity last year, and now accounts for about 1% of our electricity. A decade of that kind of growth, and there will be no coal mines in the US.

Yeah, Solar doubled it's capacity. No, it's not 1%

What is U.S. electricity generation by energy source - FAQ - U.S. Energy Information Administration EIA

Solar is 0.4%.

No, there will always be coal mines in the US. We are already exporting coal, and the demand will only increase, driving up price, making coal mining profitable.

Capacity is irrelevant. We could cover the artic poll with trillions of gigawatts in solar panels, and produce barely 1% of that in actual power.

This is why in Germany, despite having tons of wind power capacity, produces a tiny fraction of that.

Capacity is irrelevant. What matters is actual production.

So solar capacity doubled, and it now *produces* 0.4% of our national power consumption.



Whooo hooo...

"well if the expansion of capacity continues"

Theoretically.... yes. I lost 10 lbs over the past 6 months. In theory in about 10 years, I should be lighter than air. My sister gained 20 lbs in the past 6 months. In 30 years, she'll be heavier than Shamu. (she's pregnant)

What's my point? You are making a fairly large assumption that a short term pattern will continue indefinitely. That's never the case. Global temperatures have been falling since 2002. If that keeps up, we're on the verge of an ice age.

Not only is the current trends not automatically going to continue, but it is entirely likely that they will not.

The massive cost of government spending on renewable energy, is very likely to be ended. When it happens, is completely unknown, but we do know that on a state level, it's already started.

Ohio recently 'paused' green energy subsidies. The cost was getting high, and thus to maintain a solid budget, the green-energy push was paused.

If the renewable energy field was truly viable, then it wouldn't need subsidies from the government.

Spain recently had to cut renewable energy subsidies, simply because they could no longer afford them.

Spain s solar industry to collapse as govt introduces draconian profit caps RT Business

Without government taxing the poor, to pay the rich solar corporations, they go broke. Solar, and wind both, are simply not economically viable without government dishing out tax money to rich corporations.