Managing the Life Span and After-Life of Your Solar Panels

Solar energy has grown exponentially in the last decade. In some parts of the world, that’s led to scary headlines about an inevitable “tsunami” of solar panel waste in the coming years.

While that may be true in some places – Australia, which was ahead of Ireland in rolling out solar on a wide scale was slow to spot the importance of the issue – it's important to put the potential problem into an appropriate context.

Solar panels are the key component in generating solar energy. The panels are made of photovoltaic (PV) cells composed primarily of silicon. Because silicon is a “semiconductor”, it can conduct electricity better than many other materials. Silicon is the most common semiconductor material used today. It is also the second most abundant material in the Earth's crust (after oxygen).

Other key ingredients in solar panels include glass, plastic, aluminium, and copper. Modern solar panels are efficient, low cost and have a long life span. Individual panels can be expected to last for 25 years or more, and still be capable of producing 80% or more of their original power.

Tackling the environmental crisis we face doesn’t just mean switching one precious- commodity-gobbling technology for another. It means making decisions based on the goal of protecting the planet’s resources, wildlife, and environment through a circular economy that also enhances human life.

Solar already ticks critical boxes for its “circularity” – the “abundance” of materials used in manufacturing components, the longevity of the equipment used, and the harnessing of the sun’s limitless energy.

Instead of sowing panic about solar waste, we need to ask ourselves what else we can do.

At SolarSmart, we asked ourselves that question some time ago. We don’t just believe that solar is smart for your wallet, we know it is smart for meeting Ireland’s renewable energy targets and minimizing climate change.

That means we want every individual who “goes solar” to get the maximum benefit from their installation. It doesn’t help you, the planet or us if your system isn’t working at optimum capacity.

That’s why we launched our one-stop shop for solar PV repairs. Our expert teams are trained to swiftly identify and fix the most common problems customers experience – damaged panels, inverter failure, wiring problems and grounding issues. Keeping your system running at peak capacity can make it even greener.

From solar panel waste to new opportunities

Aside from extending the working life of your solar energy system, what else can you do to ensure that solar lives up to its potential??

As far back as 2016, the International Renewable Energy Association (IRENA) began looking at the amount of waste the industry might generate as solar became a mainstream technological choice for an energy-hungry globe. IRENA estimated that by 2050 solar panels might account for 78 million tonnes of global waste annually.

Unlike the naysayers predicting this would make for overwhelming piles of waste, IRENA suggested the waste itself represented “a significant untapped business opportunity”

“If fully injected back into the economy, the value of the recovered material could exceed USD 15 billion by 2050. This potential material influx could produce 2 billion new panels or be sold into global commodity markets, thus increasing the security of future PV supply or other raw material-dependent products.”

The report suggested that addressing the issue would require adopting effective, industry-specific waste regulation, including with solar panels. While many countries lagged behind – classifying solar products as “general waste” - IRENA noted that the EU was ahead of the curve.

A 2012 community directive WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment) established a European-wide framework for the management of electrical and electronic waste. The directive aimed to reduce the amount of electrical and electronic waste going to landfills and promoted the reuse, recycling, and recovery of such waste. Under the directive, manufacturers and importers were made responsible for financing the collection, treatment, and disposal of their products at the end of life.

As far back as 2017, WEEE Ireland, the non-profit organization responsible for managing the recycling of electronic waste in Ireland, formed partnerships to bolster our solar panel recycling capabilities. These partnerships mean that WEEE Ireland can now offer waste “take-back” services for solar panel waste, as it does for other consumer electronics and white goods.

In addition to more benign elements, solar panels contain small amounts of hazardous materials like cadmium and lead. They must, therefore, be disposed of carefully. In Ireland, WEEE ensures that recycling can take place under safe conditions for the extraction of valuable components like silicon, silver, and aluminium to feed back into the manufacturing process.

Recycling solar panels not only prevents hazardous waste from entering the environment, it also reduces the need for mining new raw materials from our overstretched planet.

If you’re investing in solar today, it’s likely to be 25 years or more before you’ll need to think about replacing those panels. It’s reassuring to know, though, that solar is backed by sustainable, smart science. It will be part of a “circular” green economy for years to come.