Ebo David

I have not looked closely at Solexx, and it might well be worth the extra cost.  I just remember pricing the double wall ridged panels for a 48' greenhouse at something like $14,000, and a high quality greenhouse plastic that could be expected to last 4 to 6 years was $300 or so.  The ROI between the two products were a no-brainer, although you do have to account for the downtime while you are replacing the covering...

BTW, remember that the *warranty* is typically 1/2 to 3/4 of the life expectancy of a product.  The manufacturers do NOT want to have to pay for anything once the job is done, but the warranty will help them get jobs.  So there is a fine marketing line where it is cost-effective to set the warranty duration.  So, when looking at the products, you can often expect them to last 2x the length of time, but often in a degraded capacity.

BTW, Gorilla Glass was working on a greenhouse glass product several years ago.  I bet is it uber expensive, but likely have a life expectancy of 100 years...

I've heard from several people about using different coverings (greenhouse plastic, multicell acrylic, etc.).  One guy (I forget which video he produced) designed a greenhouse for the fancy multicell acrylic, and ended up putting on some regular greenhouse plastic just to get going.  It worked well, and then he did a cost benefit analysis and found that the nice stuff cost 30x to 50x, and was only expected to last 10x as long.  Most people I know just use a good quality UV resistant heavy greenhouse plastic, and it lasts them for years at a time.

Hope this helps.

following up on the lightning strike, you might want to think of putting in one or more lightning rods around the place.  I do not know enough to make any recommendations, but you should be able to find someone local to you that can spec them, if not put them in as well.

@larisa, depending on the type of solar panel, there might be an inverter underneath it (I am thinking Enphase microinverters). If it is a problem with a microinverter, that is easy enough to swap out. The one with the broken glass, you will want to replace that one - even if it IS currently working, it will let moisture in and the freeze/thaw will bust it up and corrode the internal connections.

@Jeff, sanity checks and safety warnings are good as far as I am concerned.  Wish someone would have sat my mother and I down and talked to us about the dangers of lead poisoning back in the late 70's.  Might have saved me a lot of pain and medical bills.

@mark's post was spot on.  That said, I do know of people who have carefully split the "taco" apart and were able to repair a bad solder joint.  That was a *very* long time ago.  Not sure what materials they use these days between the glass and the back-sheet (possibly silicon to adhere the cells to the glass or backing).

If you can get one or more to experiment with, look for ones that do NOT have cracked glass (like someone else pointed out that the soldered connections can get corroded), carefully remove the perimeter seal, and see if you can peal the backing off.  Better yet.  Take an old volt-ohm-meter with you and see if it is still making voltage.  If it IS, then just use a degraded panel for the panel (which others have implied), and maybe do some experimentation with adding coolers to the back (like a heat-pipe, PCM, air, and more).  

Anyway, back to the original question.  Supposedly, some of the old ones were repairable.  Not sure about the new ones.  That said, there is likely a bug push to make things in such a way that they are easily recyclable.  All of this together is just -- get some and find out.

Oh, BTW, I found a recommendation on the net to reach out to some of the local solar installers and see if they have any old used ones, or ones they want to get rid of.  One guy was able to pick up a pallet of 30x (with some broken, but was able to pull 9x out and install on a roof)...

@Russell, I did not snap to it until you mentioned "Eagle-Picher nickel-iron batteries", that my sister worked in one of their battery packing plants in New Mexico.  I have no way to know 40 years later, if she worked on the Edison Cells, but it is a small world... Interesting about the feeder lines, but I seem to remember reading something about how the batteries off-gassed.  

Back at the beginning of the pandemic, I was looking to rebuild my Prius (gen-II) traction battery with advanced CATL cells.  I ended up purchasing a pack from Toyota -- because the  battery died-died in the middle of the supply-chain fiasco, and I had to fix my only transport.  

I would love to hear anyone playing with Sodium-Ion batteries.  There are a couple of places where you can now get cells in standard packages.

@russell, LiPO/LiFePO and the like have minimum temperature concerns.  LiPO/LiFePO operate between -20°C to 60°C (-4°F to 140°F), and AGM -30℃ to 70℃.  That extra 20C comes with some additional cost, but may be worth it.  Take a look at your use case.  I would be interested in hearing from folks with experience with the ancient Edison cells, but that is more a curiosity than practicality.  I would love to be proven wrong on the practicality end ;-)

@Cory Hunt, I am not sure if you were replying to me with the links to the Abundance Build Channel YouTube channel, but he uses cement and not lime as his binder.  That said, I would be curious if rodents burrow into the cement bound styrofoam like they do into plain styrofoam.