Hacker News Reader

You burn a barrel of oil once. A solar panel lasts for 20+ years. After you have installed it, if China announces they will no longer sell new ones - you have two decades of lead time to start building your own domestically.

View on HN

Either the panels are purchased piecemeal, in which case some have to be replaced every year as your rolling stock fail, or they're replaced in large batches - which would be incredibly predictable, suggesting China would not fill one massive order and then say "No more", assuming they're trying to inflict pain

Either way though, you don't have 20 years to get up to speed.

No you don’t.

You have 20 years minus one day, as every day elapses.

Existing installed solar capacity is degrading at one day per day.

They have 25 year warranty with performance guarantee of 92%. After 25 years, it will continue to work fine, 8% lower output is perfectly acceptable. Most likely will last 50 years or more.

There is no product on the planet that has a a multi decade warranty with this kind of performance guarantee.

Good luck having that warranty honoured in 10 years.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com