Maxeon 40-year solar panel warranty available in select markets

Maxeon Solar Technologies announced the launch of a 40-year warranty on its SunPower Maxeon Interdigitated Back Contact (IBC) product line. The company states that its warranty covers product quality, power performance, and services in select markets for 40 years, through environmental stresses, wide-ranging temperatures, and more.

The markets covered include main distributed generation markets: Italy, Malta, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, UK, France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, Austria, Poland, Australia, Japan, and Mexico. All the other markets maintain a 25-year warranty for IBC panels.

Maxeon recently announced a commercial partnership with Omnidian to address the US commercial and industrial segment. Despite the fact that Maxeon recently announced availability of the IBC panel in the US, it is not currently offering the 40-year warranty to the US C&I customers. Instead they will have a combined 25-year warranty.

The new 40-year warranty covers the SunPower Maxeon product line, including new products like Maxeon 6, which is scheduled to launch in Q2 2022. It does not cover the new Maxeon Air modules.

Paired with a 25-year power warranty, the new 40/40 warranty from Maxeon includes 40-year coverage for defects related to workmanship and materials, power output protection, and the servicing needed to repair or replace defective panels in the markets listed above.

The new SunPower Maxeon 40-year warranty is based on external field studies from hundreds of megawatts and more than 33 million IBC panels deployed worldwide, comprehensive accelerated life testing by Maxeon and third parties, and a physics-based model, PVLife, which Maxeon uses to determine the expected performance impact over time from major degradation and failure modes. Maxeon states that continued operation beyond this period is certainly feasible.

“We have spent more than 35 years refining the patented cell and panel design of our IBC technology and that has provided the confidence that our panels will last for more than 40 years in the field. 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,” said Jeff Waters, CEO of Maxeon Solar Technologies.

The core technology of Maxeon’s patented cell and panel design of Maxeon’s IBC technology includes fundamental design differences that eliminate typical solar module failure modes, such as hotspots and cell interconnection failures. According to Maxeon, these panels have a minimum warranted output of 98% during their first year of operation, followed by a maximum annual degradation of 0.25% for the next 39 years. The result is an 88.3% warranted power level at the end of 40 years.

In November of last year, pv magazine spoke with Mark Babcock, chief revenue office of Maxon, who indicated that Maxeon was considering manufacturing in the US, but he said that in order for that to happen a few federal policy changes would be needed. He said a 3GW cell manufacturing facility in the US is waiting on an Energy Polict Act of 2005-established Title XVII loan from the US Department of Energy; it also may depend on the success of Sen. Jon Ossoff’s (D-GA) Solar Energy Manufacturing for America Act. Such adoption would make US expansion a more attractive prospect to Maxeon, likely drawing in other industry players, as well, according to Babcock.