Solar Panel Discoloration?

[nao57]

When you look at your solar panels, sometimes a few can look like there's discolored spots on the surface. It looks like circular almost rust like tint that's barely visible in the squares on the panels. I only have like 2 that do this, the others look fine, but they were from a different maker than the others. (I don't know for sure if this is a problem. And they are new panels.) And I was worried and wanted to know if this can be indicative of unnatural heat or fire risk? In particular, I thought to ask this since there have been people that had fires with their solar panels?

I also haven't seen people talk about this much. There's not really very many videos that talk about how to detect heat or fire risk ahead of time.

 

[Debbie292d]

When you look at your solar panels, sometimes a few can look like there's discolored spots on the surface. It looks like circular almost rust like tint that's barely visible in the squares on the panels. I only have like 2 that do this, the others look fine, but they were from a different maker than the others. (I don't know for sure if this is a problem. And they are new panels.) And I was worried and wanted to know if this can be indicative of unnatural heat or fire risk? In particular, I thought to ask this since there have been people that had fires with their solar panels?

I also haven't seen people talk about this much. There's not really very many videos that talk about how to detect heat or fire risk ahead of time.

I have heard of that happening when the panel wasn't sealed. Moisture will ruin them as they corrode internally. I'd hope you could take them back and get them to replace them.

 

[adamjones]

When you look at your solar panels, sometimes a few can look like there's discolored spots on the surface. It looks like circular almost rust like tint that's barely visible in the squares on the panels. I only have like 2 that do this, the others look fine, but they were from a different maker than the others. (I don't know for sure if this is a problem. And they are new panels.) And I was worried and wanted to know if this can be indicative of unnatural heat or fire risk? In particular, I thought to ask this since there have been people that had fires with their solar panels?

I also haven't seen people talk about this much. There's not really very many videos that talk about how to detect heat or fire risk ahead of time.

I bought a pallet of these used panels from Santan Solar about a year go. Most of them have been stacked in my backyard since they were delivered. Today I took some panels from the pallet and I noticed that some of the panels have a rainbow discoloring around some of the cells. What is this and how does it affect production?

 

[nao57]

I bought a pallet of these used panels from Santan Solar about a year go. Most of them have been stacked in my backyard since they were delivered. Today I took some panels from the pallet and I noticed that some of the panels have a rainbow discoloring around some of the cells. What is this and how does it affect production?

Sorry, I never got an answer and so I'm not sure.

HOWEVER,... I did find out that some of the guage of wire I was using for my panels to connect to my system was too small and getting hot. So I replaced that. You call this by checking the wires for heat. If the guage of wire isn't big enough because of cutting corners there will be heat also; which is fire risk.

But after I did that I haven't had problems and things are OK. No other issues at this time. But I did add more circuit breaker switches to my system for piece of mind. And that worked and feels right. (But mine is an off grid closed system, not a house, grid tied system.)

 

[nao57]

I bought a pallet of these used panels from Santan Solar about a year go. Most of them have been stacked in my backyard since they were delivered. Today I took some panels from the pallet and I noticed that some of the panels have a rainbow discoloring around some of the cells. What is this and how does it affect production?

I found an answer for you. Have you seen those little laser temperature readers before? (Hand held). You could use those to tell if the discoloration has too much heat around those spots. That would let you know if there was danger or not.