Recently, Corda Solar helped a customer retire some old, but still working, solar panels in order to upgrade to newer, more efficient panels. With steady increases in electricity rates and advances in solar technology, the return on investment can actually be good enough to justify replacing older panels even before they reach the end of their useful life, especially if the homeowner’s array is space constrained. But what happens to those old solar panels?
The best case scenario is redeploying those panels somewhere else. Our customer’s panels found a new home on a local ranch where the owner had lots of space to add panels. With the cost of the panels being effectively nothing, the ROI to adopt these older, less efficient panels was excellent because these panels will work for many years to come and will reduce the new owner’s need to buy electricity from PG&E. Finding a good new home for still-working panels might be as easy as advertising them on Craigslist, but you could also contact Good Sun, a Grass Valley, California, organization that re-purposes working solar panels to provide power for schools, nonprofits and low- to medium-income households. They are actively developing a secondary market for panels being removed from rooftops in California.
For panels that are too old to be reused, recycling is the answer. About 80% of a typical panel can be recycled according to an infographic by Attila Vekony of the UK’s Green Match.
Here in the East Bay, there are at least two companies who accept solar panels for recycling: Surplus Service and Recycle1234.
According to 2018 article in Green Tech by Jeff McMahon, recycling methods will need to evolve as newer panels contain fewer high-value reusable materials such as silver. Expect companies like Arizona’s PV Recycle to lead the way. Their state of the art facility in Tucson is capable of accepting very large numbers of panels and follows successful European models for solar panel recycling.
Infographic by Attila Vekony
Article by Courtney Corda
July 15, 2020