Since we are “saving the planet” by using more and more solar panels, what impact is this development having on our environment?
Australia has a goal of achieving 82% of its energy needs being generated from renewables by 2030. This means, among other things, a lot more solar energy.
The development of solar panels was enabled by the discovery of the photovoltaic cell by Alexandre Becquerel in 1839. Then Bell Labs in 1954 produced the first practical silicon solar cell. Subsequent advancements in materials, manufacturing processes and efficiency propelled solar power into the mainstream.
Despite a slow start, the growth in the solar industry over the last 15 years has been dramatic – even more than the other renewable energy sources. When we say renewable energy sources, we usually mean solar, wind, and hydro.
In Australia in 2022, renewables contributed 32% of total electricity generation – 14% solar, 11% wind, and 6% hydro. This contribution from renewables increased from 29% in 2021 – so the growth is spectacular. Even globally, solar power now generates 4% of the world’s electricity. Australia now has the highest per capita solar capacity in the world – currently at more than 1kW per capita.
And the advantages of solar energy are both obvious and well known:
- Solar panels lower your grid dependence.
- Solar panels don’t produce pollution.
- Solar panels don’t require water.
- Solar panels can be recycled (more on this below).
- To make it all even more attractive, the price of photovoltaics has been decreasing while efficiency has been increasing.
But, experts are now warning that this astonishing growth in low-carbon power is also a ticking time bomb.
It’s like most things in life – those with major up-sides also have significant down-sides – and solar power is no exception. It becomes our responsibility then to determine when, and if, the up-sides outweigh the down-sides – and this decision may vary with different places and time.
So what are the issues with solar panels?
Like most problems, they come from different directions. In the case of solar panels, the major ones come from both the panels themselves, and from the manufacturing/supply chain direction.
Taking them one at a time.
Solar panels face a recycling challenge:
We said above that one of the advantages of solar panels is that they can be recycled. But just because they can be recycled doesn’t mean that they are recycled!
It has been estimated that by 2030, internationally, the waste from solar panels could be 78 million tonnes. It has also been estimated that, currently, only 10% of decommissioned solar panels are being recycled – and even then, only partially recycled. No commercial recycling process can yet recover all the useful materials from a solar panel.
To make matters worse, there are at least two reasons why solar panels may be junked:
- The panels degrade over time. Even as solar installations increase, the world keeps getting hotter and extreme weather events more common – both increase solar panel degradation.
- As solar panels become both cheaper and more efficient, the financial motivation to change them out before their end-of-life increases. So while a solar panel can be expected to remain productive for about 30 years, economics may give them a much shorter life.
The solar panel manufacturing/supply chains also present challenges:
The manufacturing and supply chains now span the globe, so managing all the issues becomes extremely difficult.
- The mining of the raw materials causes concern. The major raw materials are metallurgical-grade silicon (MGS), silver, copper, boron, phosphorous, and aluminium. The mining of lithium for the batteries usually required by solar panels must be added to these areas of concern. Quite apart from the environmental impact of the many new mines opening to supply these materials, there are the issues of exploitation of workers that exist in many locations.
- The manufacturing process itself uses massive amounts of energy – usually provided by fossil fuel power plants.
- The fact that one country (China) supplies 77% of the world’s polysilicon may lead to supply issues if politics become involved. Currently the USA has no polysilicon manufacturing facilities (they haven’t been able to compete on price with the Chinese) – although this is due to change in coming years.
So, yes, in most cases, the benefits of solar power outweigh the down-sides, but we have lots of work yet to manage the down-sides.
Even though Australia has a world-leading solar uptake, studies found that we are using less than 5% of our potential capacity for rooftop panels. So there should be lots of motivation for getting both sides of this equation right.
Texcel has been utilising solar panels to power remote monitoring installations for many years now. As well as keeping up with the ever-changing technologies in this area, Texcel also works with its clients to prolong the life of these solar powered installations.
Of course, the motivation for installing solar panels on remote monitoring stations is different from the motivation for doing the same on a house – after all, there are usually no viable alternative power solutions in the remote locations.
Either way, Texcel is here to meet your monitoring and data needs – remotely or otherwise.
