Solar photovoltaic

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Residential rooftop solar panels. Source: U.S. EPA

Published: January 2, 2022

Updated: May 4, 2024

Author: C. Michael Hogan

Author: Alex Nies

Topic Editor: Dawn Wright

Topics:


Solar photovoltaic is the technology of converting the sun's radiation to usable electrical energy. The photoelectric effect, which was discovered in 1839 by Edmund Becquerel, is a method used to generate electricity from solid materials such as crystalline silicon or selenium. Crystalline silicon was the first material to be used in solar devices and is the most widely used material today. These conductive materials convert sunlight into an electric current, which is fed into the power-grid. The concept is appealing, since there is an apparent unlimited supply of the source of energy from the sun; however, there are significant environmental and reliability issues that deserve attention.

Reliability Issues

Solar array in California on a cloudy day. Even though it is daytime, there is almost no energy production.

The chief reliability limitations are inability of solar panels to function at many latitudes, seasons and times of day. Clearly, solar energy cannot provide electric grid base load, since solar production cannot occur at night or cloudy conditions or at medium to high latitudes. Also, the economic feasibility declines significantly during the late fall, winter and early spring. Latitude limitations make solar much less viable for locations in the northern USA and Canada. For example, in most of North American winters, solar cannot deliver any power at the time of peak daily demand (e.g. between 5 and 8 pm). Thus, solar panels cannot be considered an element of the base load for the electric grid.

Another major reliability issue is that some places such as Germany and California are closing down dependable elements of the electric grid base load such as natural gas and nuclear power plants in aggressive efforts to make the populace more dependent on solar and wind., These closures are producing a a higher incidence of power blackouts, in California, Germany and other locales that are forsaking a stable baseload. (Starn et al, 2021) Furthermore, not only have there been numerous residential blackouts in Germany and California, but skyrocketing electricity prices; moreover, Germany has experienced major blackouts of fundamental factories such as steel, producing downstream supply chain issues, extending to other countries.

To compound the problem Germany faces, wind and solar energy cannot produce the kinetic energy required to keep baseload turbines spinning, such that the probability of a blackout is present even if solar and wind generation is present. (Starn et al, 2021)

Toxicity

Map of number of arsenic contaminated wells by USA state. It is not known how much of this arsenic derives from disposal of solar panels or electric vehicle batteries, since those disposal records are not kept. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

An important environmental limitation is that there is no national policy in the USA requiring proper recycling; that is important since solar panels contain significant quantities of arsenic, cadmium, lead and other highly toxic materials. (Shellenberger, 2018). This is particularly problematic, since there are no mandatory recycling standards for solar panels, so that much of the arsenic winds up in soil, groundwater; in fact, about ten percent of American wells have arsenic content beyond the safe drinking limit. As Shellenberger states: “Contrary to previous assumptions, pollutants such as lead or carcinogenic cadmium can be almost completely washed out of the fragments of solar modules over a period of several months, for example by rainwater.” (Shellenberger, 2018) In addition, hundreds of homes destroyed in California wildfires of 2017, with resultant high concentrations of toxic heavy metals found in the residential soil from solar panel debris. The residue was often found many inches deep in soil and toxic soil cleanup typically cost about $60,000 per home to remediate.

The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA)  estimated there was about 250,000 metric tons of solar panel waste in the world at the end of 2016. IRENA projected that this amount could reach 78 million metric tons by the year 2050. (Shellenberger, 2018) “There are 100,000 pounds of cadmium contained in the 1.8 million panels in a massive solar farm at Fawn Lake, Virginia,” Sean Fogarty of the Citizens of Fawn Lake, Virginia group stated. “Leaching from broken panels damaged during natural events — hailstorms, tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, etc. — and at decommissioning is a big concern.” There is real-world precedent for this concern. A tornado in 2015 broke 200,000 solar modules at southern California solar farm Desert Sunlight. When Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico in 2017, the nation’s second largest solar farm, responsible for 40 percent of the island’s solar energy, lost a majority of its panels. In 2012, First Solar stopped placing a share of its revenues into a fund for long-term waste management. "Customers have the option to use our services when the panels get to the end of life stage," stated a spokesperson for First Solar.

Future Public Indebtedness

Obama visiting Solyndra California plant, touting future of solar panels, one month prior to Solyndra bankruptcy.

Any mechanism that finances the cost of recycling solar panels with current revenues is not sustainable. The present system almost ensures future bankruptcies by shifting today’s greater burden of ‘caused’ costs into the future. When growth levels off then solar panel producers will face rapidly increasing recycling costs as a percentage of revenues. Since 2016, many solar panel manufacturers have gone into bankruptcy, including Solyndra, Sungevity, Beamreach, Verengo Solar, SunEdison, Yingli Green Energy, Solar World, and Suniva. The result of such bankruptcies is that the cost of managing or recycling solar panel waste will be born by the public. “In the event of company bankruptcies, solar module producers would no longer contribute to the recycling cost of their products,” notes insurance actuary Milliman, “leaving governments to decide how to deal with cleanup.”

The magnitude of future public debt from solar subsidies is huge, but difficult to estimate, since there are multiple avenues of this debt stream: (1) federal debt, loans and subsidies; state and local debt and subsidies; (3) future bailouts to electrical utilities who were lured into rate reduction programs for solar users and are now petitioning to reverse such subsidies. (Iovini, 2021)

Unreliable Subsidies

The number of solar panel installations to date have depended upon massive taxpayer subsidies to incentivize homeowners to install solar. Federal and state governments have spent tens of billions of taxpayer dollars in the USA alone, so that a small percentage of (mostly upper and upper middle income) residents would adopt solar. Another problem is that many electrical utilities have been pushed to establish rate systems that further reward solar adopters. The outcome of this rate alteration is that PG&E and other electrical providers have complained that the general population (mostly lower and middle income people) are effectively subsidizing solar adopters. Consequently, in California, in December, 2021, the California Public Utilities Commission has ordered a new surcharge of $480 dollars per year on solar users, in order that they pay a fairer share of grid transmission costs. (Iovino, 2021) PG&E and San Diego Gas and Electric had petitioned to create a surcharge for solar users of almost twice that granted, and have publicly stated that the existing surcharge will certainly rise. Over the period 2008 to present, the state and federal subsidies have varied unpredictably, so that homeowners have found it difficult to plan or guess the next outcome of subsidies.

Use of Lesser Developed Countries as Waste Dumping Grounds

Children amid e-waste site containing solar panel, electric vehicle and other e-waste. Dhaka, Bangladesh. According to World Health Organization, such e-wast sites endanger millions of children as well as groundwater.
The attitude of some solar recyclers in China underscores this concern of disposing of used panels. “A sales manager of a solar power recycling company,” the South China Morning News reported, “believes there could be a way to dispose of China’s solar junk, nonetheless. We can sell them to Middle East… Our customers there make it very clear that they don’t want perfect or brand-new panels. They just want them cheap… There, there is lots of land to install a large number of panels to make up for their low performance. Everyone is happy with the result.” (Shellenberger, 2018) In other words, there are companies that may advertise themselves as "solar panel recyclers" but instead sell panels into secondary markets in nations with less developed waste disposal systems. In the past, communities living near electronic waste dumps in Ghana, Nigeria, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and India have been primary e-waste destinations. According to a 2015 United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) report, somewhere between 60 and 90 percent of electronic waste is illegally traded and dumped in poor nations.

Habitat Destruction

LieberoseSolarpark.jpg

From an ecosystem standpoint, solar farms are very destructive, especially in sensitive desert habitats, where the sensitive desert crust requires at least a century to regenerate its natural form after disturbance of installing solar arrays (not to mention ongoing maintenance). Solar farms require large areas of land, and thus can consume considerable amounts of natural habitat. Image at right shows the Lieberose solar farm in Germany, which has taken a large swath of natural habitat. Solar farms have disrupted some tribal lands by damaging desert habitat. (Willon & Hsu, 2011)

Greenhouse Gases

Manufacture of solar panels is the major source of nitrogen trifluoride, explaining why this greenhouse gas is the most rapidly growing greenhouse gas in the early 21st century.; nitrogen trifluoride and other HFCs are thousands of times more potent greenhouse gases than carbon dioxide and have thousands of years of residence time in the atmosphere.

Another significant and usually overlooked component of the greenhouse gas issue is that considerable carbon dioxide emissions are generated in the manufacture, transport, installation and decommissioning of solar panels. When those carbon costs are computed, it becomes clear that solar panels are clearly not a renewable energy source at all, but just like other fossil sources, simply have a different carbon payback time.

Bar graph showing quantities of energy needed for manufacture of various energy sources. M. Shellenberger

Energy Return on Investment

Solar power is also much less efficient in Energy Return on investment (EROI) than all other energy sources, which is the measure of how much energy is produced over a lifetime divided by the energy cost to produce (Wiegman and Blockstein, 2012); this measure is a more meaningful way to measure energy efficiency and carbon footprint than for example carbon emissions per kilowatt hour generated.

Dependence on Chinese Manufacture

One of 1086 operating Chinese coal burning power plants. One new such plant built each week as of 2022.

Most solar panels are made in China, where coal supplies 80% of the energy of manufacture; Chinese coal fired power plants emit much higher percentages of sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide emissions than coal or natural gas plants in Western countries. A worse issue is that manufacturing in that country utilises high percentages of arsenic, cadmium and other toxic heavy metals embeddeda in the solar panels. One should note that manufacture of solar panels in western countries also involves large amounts of such toxins, but not as high as Chinese sources.

Current trends in the western world are to abandon solar panel manufacture, with most future production as of 2024 to be derived from China, where use of slave labor and cheap coal burning out-competes any western manufacture. Recently Germany has just abandoned the last of its solar photovoltaic industries. (Nova, 2024)

See Also

References

PuNews Service Acadenus Letters

Citation

C. Michael Hogan & Alex Nies (2022, updated 2024) Solar Photovoltaic. ed. Dawn Wright. Encyclopedia of Earth. National Council for Science and Environment. Washington DC https://editors.eol.org/eoearth/wiki/Solar_photovoltaic

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