Popular solar markets like Australia are filled with junky panels because we ended up in a race to the bottom price-wise. I can say with certainty that the panels bought by the average consumer aren’t lasting 25 years. In Western Australia we have the cheapest solar in the world. Just don’t ask how long your system will last for.
Degradation is one thing, but are the interconnects between the embedded cells failing so they're outputting 0V? Or over-integration and the micro-inverter fails? Or?
I'm in South Australia and I don't know anyone with significant panel failures. It's not uncommon for the inverter to fail at some point.
I realize we aren't up to 25 years yet, but I know a bunch of people with solart systems over 10 years old now and they are mostly fine.
I do know some people who replaced perfectly good panels because they could get higher efficiency panels than they could 10 years ago at a cost where it made sense.
Owners of factories and warehouses should hoover up the replaced perfectly good panels for cents on the dollar and blanket their roofs with effectively free electricity. There is no real need to care about the aesthetics for them.
