Do panels degrade over time?

All solar panels will degrade over time. Life spans of a solar panel are approximately 25 years with variations depending on location.

All solar panels are affected by what is called LID or light induced degradation.

Without getting into too much detail; light causes atoms in the solar panel to split into positively and negatively charged particles. The flow of negatively charged particles (electrons) is how we get electricity. The positive and negative particles then recombine to re-form the original atom.

However, the number of recombinations is limited. Over time, less and less recombinations are able to occur and then the output of the panel start to decrease.

On a good panel, you can expect that over a 5-10 year time frame the maximum output of the panel would drop by up to 5%, whilst a lower end panel can drop by up to 10% and possibly more.