PV manufacturer Maxeon Solar Technologies has revealed its SunPower Maxeon range of interdigitated back contact (IBC) modules are to be sold with an extended 40-year warranty.
The warranty, hailed as “industry-leading” by Maxeon, will cover both product quality and power performance, beating the industry standard 12-year warranty and going beyond the typical 25-year warranty some manufacturers offer.
It also extends the previous warranty period of 30 years that was offered by SunPower prior to Maxeon’s spinout from the company.
It will cover defects related to workmanship and materials, power output and repair and replacement for panel defects.
It is to be applied to all current and future SunPower Maxeon products installed on or after 1 January 2022, in select markets in EMEA, Australia, Japan and Mexico.
Maxeon said the extended warranty had been based on external field studies of hundreds of megawatts worth of installations on top of global installations of more than 33 million IBC panels. Accelerated life testing studies were also conducted by Maxeon as well as third-parties, and a physics-based model provided by PVLife was used to plot performance impacts over time.
The manufacturer added that its IBC technology helped eliminate module defects such as hotspots and cell interconnection failures.
The warranty will specifically guarantee a minimum output of 98% during the module’s first year of operation, followed by a maximum annual degradation of 0.25% for the rest of the 40-year period, equating to a minimum output of 88.3% over the product’s lifespan.
Maxeon said the “unprecedented” coverage meant the SunPower Maxeon range would deliver up to 9.5% more power over 40 years than ‘standard’ panels would after 25 years.
Jeff Waters, CEO at Maxeon, said the new warranty was borne from the company’s 35 years of refinement of its cell and panel design.
“This exciting step is part of our promise to customers that SunPower Maxeon panels will be the best value, longest lasting and most sustainable choice in the industry. This is what we call Solar for Life,” he said.
In September 2020, PV manufacturing start-up Violet Power revealed its intent to offer a 50-year solar panel warranty for its US-made modules also using IBC technology, however its production plans ran into issues the following year when REC Silicon abruptly terminated its ingot and wafer partnership.