There are many different types of electricity producing solar panels, some do have a reduced lifespan, but the better quality ones will last 25 years, some even come with manufacturers guarantees of 25 Years.
There are many resources on the web to help you understand the potential for solar electric panels at your location. It depends on location, angle of solar cells, cloud level, and any shading. I am more familiar with those for the UK and Europe, but here are a few I found for the US. I have gone for government sites rather than sales sites:
https://www.nrel.gov/gis/solar.html
https://www.energy.gov/eere/solar/solar-energy-united-states
https://sunroof.withgoogle.com/data-explorer/
As has been mentioned, currently solar electric cells have an efficiency of between 15% and 20%, which means 80% to 85% of the potential energy is not being collected. So, if your site has any need for heat (do you have a boiler on site) don't forget to consider solar thermal panels. I struggled to find government sites for this, but found some useful information.
https://www.eesi.org/files/solar_thermal_120111.pdf
You may think that solar electric and solar thermal would take up the same real estate, but people are now developing combined or hybrid solar electric and solar thermal systems. I only have info for UK sales sites, you will have to search for people in the US:
https://nakedenergy.com/products
Combined solar PV and solar thermal can get up to 80% efficiency at grabbing solar energy. With the advantage of keeping the PV cell cooler, which reduces the normal efficiency loss at higher temperature.
And finally
. The next big hope in solar PV are perovskites, rather than being a specific chemical, it is a chemical structure that can be made from various chemicals. Solar PVs made using these structures are much simpler to make, can be printed on to plastic and need far less precious metals. Big pinch of salt here, but one of the scientists developing this say that by overlaying cells that capture different portions of the solar radiation, you get up to 40% efficient solar PV cells and he reckoned that it would be at about 1/15 of the cost of silicon based systems. The big problem they are working on is lifespan.
And finally and finally. Increasing energy efficiency of existing systems and structures is nowhere near as s e x y and solar energy, but it is usually the best place to start.