Typical degradation rates for crystalline silicon solar panels is 0.5% per year. When you read about efficiency being an area of innovation it's conversion of

Typical degradation rates for crystalline silicon solar panels is 0.5% per year. When you read about efficiency being an area of innovation it's conversion of solar radiation into electricity that's usually the issue. Inverters are 95% efficient (the other 5% goes off as heat) but there is R&D going on to improve this. The other innovation is micro-inverters - meaning each panel has it's own inverter. This means that a panel that is shaded only loses production from that panel. In a central inverter system, partial shading can kill production for the entire string - meaning all panels connected to that inverter. The tradeoff for micro inverters is higher expense and some would say more maintenance and points of failure, although there are counter arguments I won't bore you with.