Solar Warranty and AMC: What Is Actually Covered, and What Is Not
Saraswati Solar Team · 12/4/2026 · 8 min
The 25-year warranty on every brochure has limits worth reading before you sign. Plus what a maintenance contract should include.
“25-year warranty” appears on nearly every solar brochure in India. It is true, and it is also narrower than most buyers assume. Read the terms before you sign, not after a module cracks.
The three warranties in a rooftop system
- Module product warranty: typically 10 to 12 years against manufacturing and workmanship defects
- Module performance warranty: typically 25 years, guaranteeing the panel still delivers a stated share of rated output, often around 80 to 87 per cent in year 25
- Inverter warranty: usually 5 to 10 years, extendable on payment with most tier-1 brands
Structure, cables and balance of system carry much shorter terms from the installer, which is precisely why installer quality matters.
What warranties generally exclude
- Physical damage from hail, storms, falling branches or people walking on modules
- Losses from soiling, shading that appeared after installation, or missed maintenance
- Damage from unauthorised repairs or third-party tampering with the wiring
- Freight and labour for a replacement, unless your contract says otherwise — the clause that surprises people most
Why an AMC is not optional
A warranty replaces failed hardware. It does not clean your panels, tighten the structure before the monsoon, check earthing resistance, or notice that one string has been running 20 per cent below its twin for three months. A maintenance contract does.
What a good AMC includes
- Scheduled cleaning, quarterly at minimum in dusty districts
- Inspection of junction boxes, connectors and cable runs
- Earthing and lightning protection checks
- Inverter fault log review, firmware and monitoring health check
- Structure fastener torque and corrosion inspection
- A written report after each visit, comparing generation against the previous period
Keep the paperwork together
Store module and inverter serial numbers, the invoice, the commissioning report and the net metering approval in one place. Warranty claims move quickly when you can produce them and slowly when you cannot.
Saraswati Solar offers AMC packages for systems we installed and, after an initial audit, for systems installed by others.