This is why I have an article on my website to explain to prospective clients why module warranties are mostly useless.
The cost to evaluate most potential problems is prohibitive. Now if you have a major manufacturer failure and every module is obviously bad, that could be grounds for a warranty claim, but for a single module or two, or a minor deficiency in production - it just will never be worth it. And later in the life of a system, even a major issue might not be worth investigating. I can count the successful module warranty claims I have done in my career on a single hand. Modules warranties are mostly marketing nonsense, unfortunately, IMO. Jason Szumlanski Principal Solar Designer | Florida Solar Design Group NABCEP Certified Solar Professional (PVIP) Florida State Certified Solar Contractor CVC56956 On Tue, Nov 22, 2022 at 1:50 PM Scot Arey via RE-wrenches < re-wrenches@lists.re-wrenches.org> wrote: > I agree that the time to process warranty the module to a manufacturer’s > desires is cost-prohibitive. Of all the component’s we use, this warranty > almost seems the least valuable for this very reason. We stopped one case > for this very reason as I didn’t want to do a PhD dissertation for a single > module. > > > > Was surprised by one manufacturer who advised us to read that bypass > diodes were not an warranty defect even though the module was making half > power. > > > > Good luck, look forward to hearing how your case goes. > > > > Scot Arey > > Solar CenTex > > > > *From:* RE-wrenches <re-wrenches-boun...@lists.re-wrenches.org> *On > Behalf Of *Daniel Young via RE-wrenches > *Sent:* Tuesday, November 22, 2022 12:34 PM > *To:* RE-wrenches <re-wrenches@lists.re-wrenches.org> > *Cc:* Daniel Young <da...@sesre.com> > *Subject:* [RE-wrenches] Sunpower Performance Warranty Claim > > > > Hello Wrenches, > > > > Any experience successfully submitting a performance warranty claim with > SunPower on their solar modules? Right now, in order to Provide what they > are asking for, we will likely spend more time/money testing to their > satisfaction than it would cost for us to likely buy new modules and just > replace the array. > > > > Anybody have a similar experience? Or suggestions on how to deal with > Sunpower? > > > > Don’t want to bog this down with all the details but suffice to say we I-V > traced the array at the string level as a sanity check (7-10 % lower than > anticipated performance), and a random selection of individual modules as > well and we are seeing roughly 8% lower performance than expected given the > array age and listed performance warranty. (STC corrected I-V trace is 8% > lower than it should be for an 8 year old solar module from SunPower) > > > > With Regards, > > > > -- > > > > Danny Young > > NABCEP PV Installation Professional #031508-90 > > Engineering Team Lead > Solar Energy Solutions > > Lexington | Louisville | Bloomington | Cincinnati | Evansville | > Indianapolis > > 513-448-5176 (mobile) > > 877-312-7456 (Main Office) > > da...@sesre.com > > > _________________________ >
_______________________________________________ List sponsored by Redwood Alliance Pay optional member dues here: http://re-wrenches.org List Address: RE-wrenches@lists.re-wrenches.org Change listserver email address & settings: http://lists.re-wrenches.org/options.cgi/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.org There are two list archives for searching. When one doesn't work, try the other: https://www.mail-archive.com/re-wrenches@lists.re-wrenches.org/ http://lists.re-wrenches.org/pipermail/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.org List rules & etiquette: http://www.re-wrenches.org/etiquette.htm Check out or update participant bios: http://www.members.re-wrenches.org
