Solar panels end of life - what happens?

[dennis in se pa]

They are good for 20-30 years. Then what? Some of these huge solar farms will have a big problem. Just as CFL's are being discontinued because of mercury, don't these solar panels have a toxic element? Not as big a problem as nuclear though.

[Dpmulvan]

I own a lot of land and have been bothered over the last couple years by solar companies who want to lease land for solar farm. Funny how they want to leave the clean up to me the land owner. It's a topic nobody wants to talk about.

[svandamme]

They are mostly glass, plastic, and aluminum, and recyclable.

[red-beard]

They don't stop working. They just produce less power as time goes by. Most lose about 1% per year. Top tier lose about 1/2% per year.

The real issue with the loss is coupled with the original lower efficiency of the older panels. 10 years ago, standard 1x1.6m panels produced around 200 Watts. That same panel will now make 300. The idea is to replace the panels when you will get a 100% boost by replacement. 160 Watts becomes 300.

Stijn is quite correct, except for the toxic heavy metals in the doped silicon. They should not go in a landfill. The aluminum frame will be recycled. The glass? Not as likely.

[sc_rufctr]

Interesting but how much energy is used to manufacture them?

[asphaltgambler]

I think they are ugly as sin - seems to be a lot of takers in my area in crowded neighborhoods. Also I don't see how the 'math' ever works out - ROI.

To me like buying an RV new.....

[Arizona_928]

Silicon,germanium, gallium. Worth nothing....


Wind turbine is where my money will go.

[svandamme]

Originally Posted by red-beard

They dont stop working. They just produce less power as time goes by. Most lose about 1% per year. Top tier lose about 1/2% per year.

To be honest, i haven't noticed much reduction since 2011 when I put mine up on the garage.. My average daily production seems pretty much the same as what it was then.

I think the theoretical 1% loss is masked by the inverter losses, and heat losses on really hot days... So it probably takes a long time before you really start to notice anything.

[widebody911]

I have a hard time believing they will last 30 years

[Cajundaddy]

Twenty years from now a lot of them will be due for replacement and I expect enterprising recycle co's will figure out a way to separate materials and make a buck.

Solar makes a ton of sense where there is no grid like India, Africa, S. America. It still makes sense for high demand uses where energy costs are high like schools and retail. It makes no sense for my current residential use with bills averaging $50/mo.

[Aerkuld]

Originally Posted by asphaltgambler

I think they are ugly as sin - seems to be a lot of takers in my area in crowded neighborhoods. Also I don't see how the 'math' ever works out - ROI.

It's so dependent on the installation. Our house is end of a cul-de-sac and the back of the house is on a steep down hill facing west-south-west. All our panels are on the back of the house and almost impossible to see from the ground.
Even when neighbors mount them on a visible roof I don't think they look bad. It's not as if roofs are that attractive anyway.

As for ROI, that all depends on where you live - What the electricity rates are, where you can mount the panels, how much sun you get, etc. From our perspective the payback is surprisingly short. In a 25 to 30 year lifespan the panels should pay for themselves four times over. Seriously, since we've had the panels we haven't paid for electricity except the minimum monthly service charge which is around $11. The payback doesn't even account for the fact that the panels add to the property value by about the same as they cost. I will acknowledge we're in an ideal location for solar though.

[red-beard]

My company focuses on the local never losing power aspects by combining solar with energy storage and a backup generator, to all work seamlessly together.

At $0.075/kWh, and no net-metering, the payback is long. With the more advanced lithium storage, I can net-meter myself, but the cost doesn't work here. I have my solar set small enough to help my power bill without sending much, if any, to the grid.

FYI - my storage is around $0.08-0.10/kWh, round trip. Effective Solar production is around $0.09/kWh. So my electric rate would need to be over $0.18/kWh to break even.

It was cheaper for me...since I own the company...

[jyl]

I live in rainy climate (Portland OR) and was skeptical when my friend/neighbor installed solar panels on his house. Turns out he is now a net zero utility electricity user (on a 1 year basis) and that includes charging his Leaf car. Our electricity rates are low ($0.11 kWh) but he says this has made financial sense even so. I haven't checked his #s but he is a detail-oriented penny pincher and is tracking all this in a spreadsheet . . .

I will probably install solar when I replace the roof, probably in the next several years.

One thing I wonder is, how you deal with fallen leaves on the panels? My roof is three stories above the ground and no way am I going up there to sweep / blow off leaves. My friend has a one-level house.

In 20 years, even if the panels have lost 20% of their generating ability and are producing 50% of what new panels do, so what? Worst case you sell them very cheap to someone who'd like to pay 10 cents on the dollar for 50% the power.

[red-beard]

I wish I had pictures of my business associate in India. His 30kW install on his office building was incredibly dirty. I suggested some very long water-fed soap brushes, like for a truck.

[mjohnson]

Originally Posted by red-beard

...except for the toxic heavy metals in the doped silicon. They should not go in a landfill. The aluminum frame will be recycled. The glass? Not as likely.

Dopants are very low in concentration, low enough to be absorbed into whatever crystal lattice is already there, so there's no separate phase with a new set of chemistry problems to deal with w.r.t. environmental fate. They're also pretty nontoxic in their pure state.

The photovoltaic layers themselves vary in their durability/fate once munched up and put in the ground. Some sound scary (GaAs) but that stuff is about as stable as sand.

If they don't use Pb in the soldering, I bet the end of the life cycle is waaay kinder than their birth. I've done CVD for thin film solar cells - I bet a baby dolphin dies every time you crack open a tank of arsine, phosphene or silane!

[Cajundaddy]

Originally Posted by jyl

I live in rainy climate (Portland OR) and was skeptical when my friend/neighbor installed solar panels on his house. Turns out he is now a net zero utility electricity user (on a 1 year basis) and that includes charging his Leaf car. Our electricity rates are low ($0.11 kWh) but he says this has made financial sense even so. I haven't checked his #s but he is a detail-oriented penny pincher and is tracking all this in a spreadsheet . . .

I will probably install solar when I replace the roof, probably in the next several years.

One thing I wonder is, how you deal with fallen leaves on the panels? My roof is three stories above the ground and no way am I going up there to sweep / blow off leaves. My friend has a one-level house.

I would probably need to see the full math on your neighbor's install. So much confirmation bias and false assumptions creep into these comparisons it is difficult to get a clear and honest ROI. LED lighting and efficient appliances are so much less $$ up front than panels. No way the #s would work for me at $0.11/kwh. I currently pay $0.19/kwh but heavy users in SoCal pay tier 3 @ $0.40/kwh.

Leaves and partial shade are death to solar panels, quickly cutting production by 50% or more. Here these guys test both tilt and shading for a boat install:
https://www.gonewiththewynns.com/Sailboat-Solar-Series-Parallel-Shading

[Ferraripete]

capacity factor of ~18% in even the areas w/ the highest solar radiation rates.

[Evans, Marv]

We have a tiered system where we live - Tier 1: 0-530 kWh - $.29, Tier 2: 531-1,632kWh - $.39, Tier 3: >1.633 kWh - $.55. Our house is all electric, and I always intended to get solar. What made me decide to pull the trigger were two things, net metering program, and my highest winter monthly bill going from $495 to $595 one year to the next. That showed me how much the power company had managed to raise rates. With the tax credit, my system of 25 panels ended up costing a little less than $19K. I don't pay for electricity anymore and sell the power company around a megawatt of power at the end of the year (at $.02-$.04 per kWh). I intend to replace the panels when they get down enough in efficiency - although I'll probably be dead by then. Where the panels are placed, they can't be seen.

[LWJ]

My solar panels are are 46 degrees N and seem to produce well. Our solar contractor said the cooler temps of the NW made for better performance than somewhere like Florida. Not sure if this is true but it sounds good.

Yes. We are almost net zero on electricity with 16 panels.

Good investment? I have NO idea. It looks cool however!

As to end of life? I expect to sell well before they crap out on me so I have not given that any thought.

[stealthn]

Would like to hear from someone with a Tesla roof and power wall.