So far in our Best Practices for Sustainable Solar Development series, we’ve covered Design, Procurement, Construction, and Vegetation Management. These are all important aspects for developing and building the solar project, yet sustainability doesn’t stop after interconnection. In Part 5, we’ll discuss best practices for sustainably operating and maintaining the project (O&M) and sustainable practices for end-of-life management and restoring the land after its 25-to-30-year lifetime.
Sustainable O&M
To begin, we must first understand why O&M is critical for any solar development. Performance monitoring and reporting, preventive maintenance visits, module cleaning, and remote diagnostic services extend the life of your project and protect against downtime that could affect the project’s revenue and profitability.
With the added goal of managing and maintaining the project for reduced carbon emissions, every “truck roll” not only increases costs, but it also increases the project’s lifetime project footprint, which may be important for the project owner’s net-zero goals. Consequently, remote monitoring with predictive analytics that may spot equipment failure is one sustainable best practice that can minimize the costs and carbon emissions of sending out a maintenance crew.
Ground cover maintenance is another sustainable O&M opportunity. Traditional grass seed ground cover may literally appear to be “green” on the surface, but these grasses can grow quickly and require frequent mowing with gas-powered weed-whackers and lawn mowers. That’s why Inovateus plants a local pollinator grass mix at its projects. Pollinator vegetation not only requires less maintenance and treatment, but it can also help support bees and butterflies that pollinate the crops of neighboring farms. In addition, a National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) study shows how pollinator grass can cool down the solar modules, increasing solar module efficiency while boosting solar production.
Sustainable End-of-Life Project Decommissioning
Large solar projects use a tremendous amount of land and manufactured equipment that includes solar modules, but also electronics, steel, copper wiring, and plastics. To truly be a sustainable solar project owner, one must consider how to responsibly decommission the project with the least impact on the land and community’s landfills.
A sustainable solar decommissioning team will have specific knowledge about the solar products, the area’s environmental regulations, and the available recycling and waste facilities. They should also be able to identify any hazardous or toxic materials that may be present at the site and know how to properly dispose of those materials and comply with local regulations.
The first step in decommissioning is identifying all components of the PV system. Common recyclable elements include electrical wiring, panels, racks, foundations, and security fencing. All components must be accounted for and sorted so that they can be removed safely and completely.
Solar Panel and Product Recycling
Recycling solar panels is not yet a widespread practice, but cities and states are already creating laws that will make recycling modules mandatory — and for good reason. NREL estimates that by 2050, up to 78 million metric tons of waste will accumulate from end-of-life solar panels.
As we discussed in a recent Inovateus Solar webinar, recycling solar modules is challenging today, but it’s expected to be easier and less expensive as recyclers are finding more cost-efficient methods for separating and recycling the module’s raw materials. In some cases, recyclers can assess, repair, and repurpose modules for smaller solar projects.
If the modules can’t be reused, recyclers can recover silicon, silver, aluminum, copper, glass, plastic, and rare earth metals and then sell these materials for new manufacturing. A reputable solar panel recycler will know how to separate the recyclables and dispose of non-recyclable materials in an environmentally responsible manner.
Recycling doesn’t stop with solar modules. Ground mounts, trackers, and wiring are all made of recyclable metals that are valuable to solar and nonsolar manufacturers. These metals can be reused for new products, and they can reduce the emissions and costs associated with the mining and forging of steel and aluminum and subsequent manufacturing. As with some solar modules, the decommissioning team may also find that racking and wiring are in good condition and able to be reused rather than recycled.
As the solar industry continues to grow, more best practices and technologies will be developed that can hopefully create cradle-to-cradle processes for developing and retiring solar projects. Restoring the land for new solar development, agriculture, or recreation will also be equally important and contribute to community vitality.
