Tesla solar panel warranty, and what is covered when the installer is gone

The Tesla document this site has read and verified is the Powerwall warranty, and Powerwall is a battery. It covers ten years of parts on the Powerwall 3 line, no labour, and it carries a live condition: the unit has to stay connected to the internet. It says nothing about panels. Panels are a separate document, and that difference is the whole point of this page.

What has actually been checked

On 30 July 2026 we read the Tesla Powerwall Warranty for Australia and New Zealand. Here is what it holds, and nothing beyond it.

Two conditions come with that ten years:

• The Powerwall is registered with Tesla at commissioning. There is nothing for you to file afterwards.
• The Powerwall stays connected to the internet. This is not a one-off box to tick. If the connection drops and is not restored within 45 days of Tesla's written request, cover ends at 48 months instead of ten years.

Read that second one twice. A new router, a changed wifi password, a house move that switches the broadband account: any of those can take a battery offline, and nothing on the wall tells you that your warranty has quietly become a four year one. The full terms and the source document are on the Tesla warranty page.

That was the Australia and New Zealand document. If you are in the United States, the terms for your Powerwall live in the US document, and you should read that one rather than assume this applies.

What has not been checked, and will not be guessed at

There is no verified Tesla panel warranty in this catalogue. So this page will not tell you how many years Tesla gives on a panel, what its performance curve guarantees, or what the roof warranty on a Solar Roof runs to.

That is deliberate. Every warranty fact on this site traces to a manufacturer document with a date next to it. If we have not read the document, we do not write the number. Plenty of pages ranking for this search will give you a confident figure. Ask yourself where they got it.

What we can do is tell you how the warranties on a solar system split up, because that is the actual question underneath "what does Tesla cover".

A solar system carries several warranties, held by different companies

On a Tesla system the panel maker and the installer may or may not be Tesla. Tesla systems have been sold direct and sold through certified installers, and the panels on Tesla jobs have not always been Tesla-branded. So the first job is not looking up a brand name. It is reading your own paperwork and working out which company promised what.

Find out what you actually own

Do this before you ring anybody.

1. Find the contract and the invoice. They name the seller, the install date and usually the equipment.
2. Photograph the label on the inverter or the battery. Take it from the ground or from a safe standing position. Never climb on the roof for a serial number.
3. Note the panel make and model. It is on the back of the panel, but it is also usually on the contract, the design drawing or the electrical certificate, which is a much better place to look.
4. Check any monitoring app you were given. It often lists the exact hardware.

If you cannot read a label, the serial number guide covers where each one hides and what to do when the sticker has faded.

When the installer is gone

This is why most people arrive at this page. The company that sold you the system has closed, and you are trying to work out what survives.

The short version: the workmanship warranty dies with the installer, because it was their promise about their own work. The product and performance warranties are promises from the manufacturers, and manufacturers do not care who put their gear on your roof. Those stand.

That means a failed battery or a failed inverter is still a manufacturer claim. What you lose is the free labour. The maker sends the part. You pay somebody to diagnose the fault, take the old unit out, fit the new one and commission it.

Most brands in this catalogue pay nothing toward that labour. Powerwall 3 carries no labour cover. Two brands are the exceptions worth knowing about: REC carries 240 months of labour cover on its Alpha Pure-R line, and Enphase reimburses $200 per truck roll plus $25 per replaced microinverter in the United States. Neither helps you if your gear is from someone else, but it tells you what "good" looks like when you next buy.

The full walkthrough of what survives an installer closing is in this post.

Getting a battery claim moving without the original installer

A manufacturer wants proof, not a relationship. For a Powerwall claim you are assembling:

• The serial number of the unit
• The installation date
• Proof you own it, usually the original invoice or contract
• Evidence of the fault, which for a battery is normally the error state in the app plus what you observed

Some brands will deal with a homeowner directly. Others will only speak to an accredited installer, which means finding one willing to act for a system they did not install. Ask the manufacturer for their local accredited list before you start ringing around at random. A company on that list has a reason to help.

The claim checklist tool builds the evidence list for the brand and part you pick, so you can walk into the first phone call with everything already in hand. The deadline calculator will tell you whether there is a clock on your brand at all.

The one thing to do today if your system still works

Check that the battery is online.

For a Powerwall that is not housekeeping, it is the condition the ten year term hangs on. Open the app. If it has not reported in a while, find out why. A router that got replaced eighteen months ago is a boring reason to lose six years of cover.

Then find your paperwork. Contract, invoice, install date, serial numbers, and a photo of every label. Put them somewhere you will still have them in a decade. The day you need those documents is usually the day the company that had them on file no longer exists.

More on the other equipment on your roof: battery warranties and panel warranties.