Are Old Solar Panels Worth Anything

Whether you re a business that installed solar panels to lower your energy costs a company that manufactures solar panels or even a homeowner that jumped on the solar bandwagon early if you re replacing your old solar system with a new one don t toss your old panels away or worse let your installer take your old panels away.

Are old solar panels worth anything. So you are. How are you financing your solar panel system. Nrel has found that solar companies are charging around 2 60 per watt to install rooftop solar systems and between 63 and 91 cents of that goes to making and delivering the panels. You can take panels that have been out in the sun for 20 or 30 years and a lot of the older ones still work the second service recyclepv offers is repurposing and reusing solar panels.

So your biggest obstacle to recycling your old solar panels is finding a place that will take them. This is an important one. That s something we totally advocated for reusing these solar panels. However the price of solar panels has historically been high.

Solar panels are highly technical products with electrical wiring glass and a variety of metals. And while the cost of solar panels has dropped more than 70 since 2010 according to the solar energy industries association batteries can cost as much as 10 000 to 15 000 including installation according to solar united neighbors. This caused panel prices to plummet comparatively so while solar panels were worth it for the consumer the manufacturers struggled to make a profit. As with any complex product some parts of the panels are worth more to recyclers than others.

While solar leases and power purchase. As solar panels age they become less efficient in a process known as degradation. The federally funded national renewable energy lab found that solar panel efficiency decreases an average of 0 8 annually p. Overseas manufacturers such as china were dumping massive amounts of solar pv onto the market.

Obviously that s not that much but over several years it adds up. If you have enough to make a purchase in cash you ll save more than with any other option but even with a 0 down solar loan your savings could still be in the tens of thousands. Ironically the investment opportunity wasn t in investing in the manufacturers of solar panels. In the past the investment required for solar panels was too high for many to afford even though the panels would pay for themselves over time.