What is the service life for photovoltaic cells?

Question

Only answer if you have a standard of reference that you can present and I can check.

Answer 1

Depends upon what you'd consider "service life" for your particular application -- would a 25% loss in power output cause you to call the cell toast? While warranties exist, as noted in post #1, it's like a NiMH cell ... great at the beginning, but after 300~500 cycles, most warranties only guarantee 60~65% of the original cell capacity.

Power loss over time is all over the map depending upon the materials used. As an example, this link

http://www.osti.gov/bridge/servlets/purl/6578-3gG82j/native/6578.pdf

demonstrates that the use of different top film materials in the cell construction made a HUGE difference in power output. Looks like Tefzel, while good in other respects, creates far too much opacity (kinda critical for a solar cell) over time due to exposure, and really killed the power output in this particular accelerated test.
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Answer 2

Most c-Si panels are warrantied for 25 years and should see 35+ years of useful life

Answer 3

I installed a large array in the Ecuadorian jungle . Even though it was high in the jungle there was material that deposited on the protecting glass. wash it off with window cleaner worked fine. Be sure that u tie them down with a Strong frame . I had a wind storm wipe out the first cells ,about $ 15,000 worth. Also it is good to install diodes to isolate them from each other . If something hits one and shorts it out u do not burn every thing up.