What Fails First in a Solar System? Sean White on Equipment Lifespan

When you’re doing O&M on a solar system, sooner or later something’s going to fail – the question is what. Is it more likely to be the PV module, the racking, the electronics like inverters, or something like a combiner box? Knowing the answer matters beyond troubleshooting. It also shapes how equipment lifespan gets built into a proposal.

We sat down with Sean White, instructor for HeatSpring’s O&M Associate Technician (OMAT) prep course, to talk about which components tend to fail first and why.

Want to build a deeper foundation in O&M and system troubleshooting? Sign up for the OMAT course to get started.

Transcript below

Let’s talk about what kind of equipment is likely to fail first. You’re out there doing O&M, things are breaking, and you don’t know what’s broken yet. Is it more likely to be the PV module? The racking? The electronics, like inverters? Or something like combiner boxes?

This matters beyond troubleshooting, too — people build this into their proposals, because equipment is going to fail over a certain amount of time. And a lot of times, the answer is: it’s going to be the electronics. They’re just more sensitive. They generate heat, and they wear out more over time compared to something like a PV module, which behaves more like a crystal sitting in sunlight — it just doesn’t degrade the same way.

Certain brands might have higher failure rates than others, and there’s variation across equipment. But it’s generally understood that inverters and electronics are going to fail sooner than other pieces of equipment in the system.