Average Grid-tie inverter lifespan?

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balee123
balee123 Solar Expert Posts: 86 ✭✭
Any stats on forum for this?

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  • BB.
    BB. Super Moderators, Administrators Posts: 33,439 admin
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    Re: Average Grid-tie inverter lifespan?

    No--You are going to find that actual return rates are not provided by any companies (that I know of)... Plus, for most electronics, it seems that about 50% of the returns are NTF (No Trouble Found).

    My GT inverter was replaced by the factory because of a manufacturing defect that was causing early life failure (outside of the 5 year warranty for my inverter). The brand new inverter however failed within about a year. A 5 year old "brand new" inverter to replace that one is still going OK after a year or two...

    More or less, for electronics I would put money in the bank based on a 10 year replacement cycle--If they last longer, great.

    The micro inverters are supposed to last longer (20+ years?)... And they may very well do that. If designed/built correctly, smaller devices can have less thermal cycling problems.

    -Bill
    Near San Francisco California: 3.5kWatt Grid Tied Solar power system+small backup genset