Why old objections to Solar are gone

I had an interesting conversation the other day with a business owner who also owned his building. This was a smart man, an ideal prospect, but he dropped me like a bad habit. These were his objections:

What happens if you, the local Solar installer, and provider of maintenance goes broke? Who is going to support the expensive Solar Array installed on my roof?

What is the procedure/market for recycling Solar panels that go bad? "I don't want to own that headache."

Once strong opinions are formed it is difficult to change them. However, these concerns are no longer valid and my friend will be operating at a cost disadvantage to his competitors that see the light and lower their energy costs by installing a Solar Array.

First concern..what happens if we, the Solar installer, goes broke? Not a good thing, but not as bad as one might think. Solar installation companies are not inventing product. We all buy the same major components that have essentially become industry standard. The product market has matured greatly over the past 5 years. The components of a Solar Array have essentially become standardized. Components of different manufacturers and vintages can be swapped out easily. Another Solar installation and support company could support the system.

Second concern...The most reliable portion of any Solar Array is the PV panel. The failure rate today is 5 out of 10,000 panels fail within the warranty period of 25 years. Furthermore, if a panel fails it most frequently will fail during the first 30 days of operation. Simply put, panels do not break. Here are a couple articles as back up. NREL article Energy Sage article

Continuing on this subject...There is not a Solar Panel recycling industry today simply because there is no product to recycle. The panels don't break. Perhaps after 35-40 years panels will fail or an economic case could be made for replacing them with current technology. When this day comes, no doubt a recycling market will emerge. The major components of a Solar Panel are aluminum, silicon and glass. All components that lend themselves well to recycling.

The bottom line is that companies who now install Solar Arrays on the buildings they own will have a significant cost advantage over their competitors that delay or never get on board with producing their own electricity.

It is much cheaper to produce your own electricity than to forever buy it from the local power company.