Cracked panel

[Robin Davidson]

Hi, I have a 10kW PV roof mounted system installed in 2015. I just discovered that the glass of one panel is shattered, like a car windscreen shatters. I believe the panels are made by Samsung and are 250w, 60 cell units. I guess that Samsung panels are/were made in China who tend not to worry about such things as warranty. They were meant to be Hanwha panels but Ottawa Solar Power switched for the cheaper option at the install. OSP have been useless on customer support since I paid them. Does anyone have any experience of panel glass cracking? Is it easy enough to switch out one panel for a new one of the same physical size even if the power output may be a little different? Panels are arranged in 2 strings of 12 and 2 strings of 8. Can anyone recommend an installer in eastern ON that may be able to help?
Thanks.

[Rob Beckers]

Hi Robin,

Sorry to hear about your cracked panel!
If it is indeed a Samsung panel it would be Korean (the brand) and they would indeed honour their warranty. However, a cracked panel is never covered, unless you can somehow proof it was a manufacturing defect. Reality is that 99.99% of cracked panels are due to mechanical impact that would shatter any perfectly made panel (ie. it's not a fault of the manufacturer). The only cases that I know about where panels cracked due to manufacturing issues was a very specific series from Heliene (and I think they tracked that down to frames that were out-of-spec and pinching the glass). That is exceedingly rare though!

Regarding replacement: In general, yes, you can replace your panel with any 60-cell module that is the same or higher Wattage. The higher Wattage panels will simply be "throttled" back to run at the (lower) current of your other panels in the string, so it won't quite produce its higher output but perform like a 250W panel (if that's what you have).

It is getting hard to get 60-cell panels though. The current norm is 66-cell, and those are quite a bit larger than what you have.

Hope this helps!

-RoB-

[Robin Davidson]

Rob,
Hi, thanks for your reply, I'll contact Execon and see what they can do. If they're unable to get a replacement panel then I'll ask if they can remove the cracked panel so it becomes a string of 7 instead of 8, I guess that will be the easiest solutions,
Cheers,
Robin

[Robin Davidson]

Following my post from Nov. '22 I contacted a couple of PV system installers to try to resolve the issue but since it was November any resolution had to be put off until the snow had cleared. When the snow had gone I contacted the original system supplier who said they would come out to take a look (presumably to also rectify the issue) and made an appointment. They failed to show up for the appointment, their phone voicemail box is full and they are not responding to my emails. Another local supplier has not gotten back to me either although I see from their website that they are trying to recruit PV technicians so maybe they do not have the staff right now. In the meantime I continued getting error message 475 but the system would work once the cracked panel dried out but this was causing me to stress. I therefore decided to take it into my own hands in an attempt to stop these error messages. In short I purchased some rolls of self adhesive window film, cut it into pieces approx 300mm x 450mm, made a couple of 'application tools' and applied the pieces of film to the panel, working from the bottom and making sure the film pieces overlapped. I attached the film to the tool with four 'feet' using small pieces of aluminium tape before gently lowering it into place, I then tried to smooth the film to get good adhesion using the modified window cleaning tool! The first three pieces were applied when there were wind gusts which resulted in a couple of those pieces looking particularly 'bubbly' but when I tried again a few days later with little breeze the rest applied much better. Since then the system has been subject to rain but I have not gotten the error message since the film was applied. It's not pretty but it seems to be effective and will suffice until I can get someone to take a more professional approach. See pictures :cool:

[Ralph Day]

Bravo Robin. That's a job well done.
My son in law has one panel on a microfit that has a hole through it, shattered too, but it produces just like the other 53 in the 4 arrays. I say it looks like a shotgun slug went through it, but he thinks it's from a meteor. A much more sexy theory. It's been like that for over 10 years. Maybe a meteor would be hot enough to self seal?

Ralph

[Rob Beckers]

Neat!
As long as it works it's all good.

Ultimately I suspect you'll either have to replace those panels or bypass them (shorten the involved string(s) of panels). Fronius error 475 is about too low a resistance between the PV Voltage side of things and ground/earth. The reason it tests for this is because there is a danger of energizing the panel frames and racking (though that would also require bad grounding of the racking, something to make sure is in order in your case). So code requires that inverters check for that, and signal it.

In itself cracked panels generally work reasonably well, at least for a while. The PV cells are sandwiched between a layer of transparent "EVA" type plastic on both sides. On the sunny side you then get the glass, on the backside a sheet of another plastic, "Tedlar", and the whole assembly is then shoved through an oven that heats it and draws a vacuum. The transparent plastic melts, and 'glues' the cells to the glass etc.

So, when you crack the glass, the cells are still insulated and doing their thing. A major function of the glass is to provide rigidity, and when that's gone the cells will over time crack more and more, they are very brittle, until they stop producing. That's how the panel ultimately dies.

Since you're in Rockland, you could try Execon Solar. I know the guys that run it well, they're good, but from what I hear they're also booked solid for the next 12+ months. All the goods ones seem to be in a similar situation.

-RoB-

[Monstervi Alex]

I had a similar issue with a cracked panel a while ago, and it was really annoying trying to get help from the installer. What worked for me was reaching out to a local installer who had experience with different brands. They were able to replace the panel and make sure everything was still working smoothly, even though the new one had a slightly different output.