Fox Station’s report above is likely to get wide coverage on the anti-clean energy social media networks.
For the record, solar panels damaged in a storm will be replaced and the facility will get back to producing clean electricity.
Big storms are getting bigger, but as we have seen in many examples, extreme weather is affecting every kind of power generation, from coal, to gas, to nuclear. Also worth noting that conventional electrical generating sources produce a steady stream of toxic byproducts, usually combustion effluent, when they are operating normally and as designed.
We now have an emerging genre of anti-solar stories that focuses on supposed dangers of broken solar panels. This one, above, is from a Houston area Fox station.
The idea rests on the mistaken claim that solar panels are full of toxic material just waiting to leak out and contaminate soil or groundwater. The fact that no such incident has ever been documented does not stop the fossil fuel media apparatus from repeating it.
The Fox Station report above follows a time worn script. Describe the event, find an ignoramus with an agenda and an uninformed take, – in fact, they make it clear that the “regular person” they interview has been a long time solar opponent – they fail to seek out any credible or knowledgeable person, (there are plenty in Houston area) and report it as “news”.
Here’s some fact, from my resource page, sun101.org:
One thing to understand is that modern solar panels are subjected to the so-called TCLP (T-Clip) test – Toxic Characteristic Leaching Procedure – which they must pass to be sold in the most important global markets.
Health and Safety Impacts of Solar Photovoltaics – North Carolina State University:
According to RCRA, the way to determine if a PV panel is classified as hazardous waste is the Toxic Characteristic Leaching Procedure (TCLP) test. This EPA test is designed to simulate landfill disposal and determine the risk of hazardous substances leaching out of the landfill. Multiple sources report that most modern PV panels (both crystalline silicon and cadmium telluride) pass the TCLP test. Some studies found that some older (1990s) crystalline silicon panels, and perhaps some newer crystalline silicon panels (specifics are not given about vintage of panels tested), do not pass the lead (Pb) leachate limits in the TCLP test.
The test begins with the crushing of a panel into centimeter-sized pieces. The pieces are then mixed in an acid bath. After tumbling for eighteen hours, the fluid is tested for forty hazardous substances that all must be below specific threshold levels to pass the test. Research comparing TCLP conditions to conditions of damaged panels in the field found that simulated landfill conditions provide overly conservative estimates of leaching for field-damaged panels. Additionally, research in Japan has found no detectable Cd leaching from cracked CdTe panels when exposed to simulated acid rain.
Solar panels are lined with Ethylene Vinyl Acetate, (EVA) similar to auto windshields, meaning when they are damaged, they do not shatter, but remain intact.
Health and Safety Impacts again:
To provide decades of corrosion-free operation, PV cells in PV panels are encapsulated from air and moisture between two layers of plastic. The encapsulation layers are protected on the top with a layer of tempered glass and on the backside with a polymer sheet. Frameless modules include a protective layer of glass on the rear of the panel, which may also be tempered. The plastic ethylene-vinyl acetate (EVA) commonly provides the cell encapsulation. For decades, this same material has been used between layers of tempered glass to give car windshields and hurricane windows their great strength. In the same way that a car windshield cracks but stays intact, the EVA layers in PV panels keep broken panels intact.
Thus, a damaged module does not generally create small pieces of debris; instead, it largely remains together as one piece.
UPDATE: Here’s the piece I was looking for. IEA paper models worst case scenario – grinding up solar panels and disposing of them in an unlined landfill.
Result, “exposure point concentrations are least an order of magnitude below USEPA health screening values in soil, air, and water.”
Non-sanitary landfills do not conform to legal requirements in many world regions. They are characterized as having no leachate collection or groundwater monitoring, no liner for preventing leachate migration, leave the waste uncovered, and lack of stormwater management. Not only are EOL PV modules unlikely to be disposed in this manner, the combination of all of these practices is also unlikely. The conditions evaluated represent worst- case conditions for potential human health risk from PV module disposal. Yet examining worst- case conditions allows the exploration of maximum potential risk to attempt to ensure disposal does not increase health risk above regulatory thresholds.
Potential health risks are evaluated through direct estimate of cancer risk and non-cancer hazard and through comparison of predicted exposure-point concentrations in soil, air, groundwater, and surface water with risk-based screening levels published by USEPA. For Cd from CdTe PV and Se from CIS PV, cancer risks and non-cancer hazards are several orders of magnitude below screening thresholds (1×10-6 cancer risk and non-cancer hazard quotient of 1). For Pb from c-Si PV, exposure-point concentrations are at least an order of magnitude below USEPA health screening values in soil, air, and water.
FYI – A “non-cancer hazard quotient of 1)” indicates that there should be no significant non-cancer health risk associated with exposure to a particular contaminant.
Another view: Solar panels retain structure even after impact, similar to safety glass on auto windshields. Like windshields, panels are encapsulated with Ethylene Vinyl Acetate (EVA), which holds the structure together.
