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Comment by leonidasrup

4 hours ago

https://www.auxsol.com/blog/how-long-do-solar-inverters-last...

" String Inverters: The most common residential choice, lasting 10–15 years on average and boasting impressive cost-performance.

Microinverters: Mounted directly on individual solar panels, these often reach 25 years—nearly matching the lifespan of solar panels themselves. Industry data highlights lower failure rates for microinverters, though they come with a higher upfront cost.

Central Inverters: Typically used for larger residential or commercial and industrial systems, central inverters last 10–15 years. "

Without an solar invertor a solar panel is just a black panel.

https://digitalpower.huawei.com/en/blogs/how-long-will-a-lit...

"Generally, lithium-ion batteries used in ordinary consumer electronics have a cycle life of about 300 to 500 times. After reaching this number of cycles, the battery capacity will drop to about 80% of its initial capacity. For example, if the lithium-ion battery of a smartphone undergoes a full charge-discharge cycle every day, its performance will significantly decline after approximately 1 to 1.5 years.

In contrast, lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, due to advancements in technology and craftsmanship, can achieve 1,000 to 2,000 charge-discharge cycles, with a correspondingly longer service life of 5 to 8 years or even more. Lithium-ion batteries for data centers have an even longer cycle life of approximately 5,000 cycles and a service life of up to 10 years, meaning there’s no need to replace batteries during the UPS’s full lifecycle. However, these are only theoretical estimates, and the actual service life is affected by various factors."

Damn, those li-ion sure seem like a bad long-term solution. Very convenient that you use lifepo4 for at-home battery storage, and either lifepo4 or possibly sodium for grid scale.

Inverters aren’t a problem. China produces roughly half of them worldwide iirc. They’re dominant but you can source from elsewhere without an issue.

LiFePO4 is almost purely China, but those will last you 20 years, which is roughly 365 times as long as if you’re cut off from oil.