Common Incorrect Statements Regarding Solar Panel Toxicity

You may read online or hear in your community similar inaccurate statements regarding solar panel toxicity.

“Solar panels contain a substantial amount of toxic chemicals. Fragile, they become damaged and leak into the soil, risking our health and the health of our wildlife”

“Solar panels contain harmful chemicals which are known to leak. These toxins [include] . . . Cadmium Telluride [and] . . . Lead . . . .”

“Leakage of . . . chemicals pose a threat to our residents as well as our waterways, livestock, wildlife, fields, and well water. Disposal of broken, malfunctioning or obsolete solar panels also causes toxic leakage in landfills.”

FACTS AND CREDIBLE SOURCES

The “sources” for these statements address solar panel manufacturing or recycling/disposal, neither of which will take place in Logan County. The safety of these activities is important, which is why they are highly regulated by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (manufacturing) and the Environmental Protection Agency (recycling/disposal). But these activities are irrelevant to the safety of neighbors of an operating solar facility.

Most of the “sources” of these concerns are opinion pieces or editorials by known commentators who are staunch proponents of other kinds of energy generation, such as nuclear or fossil fuels. They are not research results or studies published by knowledgeable and objective experts. Even most of these sources do not actually support the claims made (as quoted above).

Solar panels are not at all fragile; they are made mostly of aluminum and shatter-resistant glass. They can withstand golf ball-sized hail. Similar to a car window, if they crack, they do not usually shatter.[1]

Solar panels contain only materials in “solid state” form, just like the electronic components in laptops and smart phones. They do not contain liquids that can “leak.”

The amount of “chemicals” in solar panels is miniscule. For example, a typical solar panel has about half the amount of lead (used as solder) as a single shotgun shell, and a single battery used in a car or farm equipment has more lead than 700 solar panels.[2] An Ohio manufacturer uses a semi-conducting layer of cadmium telluride in its solar panels that is only 3% of the thickness of a human hair.[3]

Several of the chemicals used in solar panels that the website claims are toxic to humans are not. For example, cadmium telluride (CdTe), which presents no safety issues at solar facilities, is not the same as the element cadmium (Cd), which may be toxic. According to Virginia Tech, “[t]o draw a simple analogy, the properties of water (H2O) are not similar to those of hydrogen gas (H2) just because the two species both contain hydrogen. Just as it is improper to assume water can burn because hydrogen burns, it is invalid to treat CdTe as if it were as toxic as Cd.”[4]

Rain or moisture at operating solar facilities is not a concern. In order to ensure their functioning over decades and satisfy warranties, solar panels’ semi-conducting layer is protected from moisture by encapsulation within an airtight envelope. As reported by Virginia Tech, “[w]hen photovoltaic modules break in the field, they remain intact. Encapsulation of the module components is achieved through use of a glass-laminate-glass design . . . [whose] bond strength is on the order of ~50 kg/cm2 making it very difficult to separate the front and back of the module. For example, in a landfill experiment, photovoltaic modules were crushed with six passes by a landfill compactor with a compact load of 50 tons, and the crushed module pieces maintained the front-back encapsulation.”[5]

Even if an operating solar panel’s encapsulation failed, it would be promptly repaired or replaced. Virginia Tech notes that “[s]ystem performance monitoring and routine visual inspections of solar facilities ensures that non-functioning modules are detected and promptly removed from the field so even when breakage occurs, long-term exposure to rain is not a likely scenario.”[6]

Most solar panels are so safe that, contrary to the unsupported claim that has been made (as quoted above), they can be disposed of in regular landfills along with household trash. According to N.C. State University, “[l]ike many silicon-based panels, CdTe panels are reported (as far back as 1998) to pass the EPA’s Toxic Characteristic Leaching Procedure (TCLP) test, which tests the potential for crushed panels in a landfill to leach hazardous substances into groundwater. Passing this test means that they are classified as non-hazardous waste and can be deposited in landfills.”[7] Additionally, studies have found that chemicals do not “leach” from solar panels into the environment under normal conditions or even possible accidents such as storms or fires.[8]

Resources:

[1] See https://youtu.be/4T6VbzC889k and https://youtu.be/hR0dHl58zwE for videos that demonstrate solar panels’ ability to withstand impacts without shattering.

[2] A 12-gauge shotgun shell contains ~1 ounce of lead (https://www.fws.gov/uploadedFiles/FAQsfortheweb.pdf).

The average solar panel has ~12 grams, or <½ an ounce, of lead, mostly in the soldering (“Recent facts about photovoltaics in Germany,” Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems, section 22.1, available at: https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/content/dam/ise/en/documents/publications/studies/recent-facts-about-photovoltaics-in-germany.pdf). As referenced below, unlike the lead in shotgun shells which are regularly distributed annually across many farm fields by hunters, the lead in solar panels is encapsulated within an airtight, waterproof, and shatter resistant envelope mounted off the ground. A typical 32 lb car battery contains 8.7 kg of lead (Linden, David; Reddy, Thomas B., eds. (2002). Handbook Of Batteries (3rd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill. p. 23.5. ISBN 978-0-07-135978-8, available at: https://dl.icdst.org/pdfs/files/b334382400c223631bea924f87b0a1ba.pdf).

[3] First Solar, “Thin Film Photovoltaic Technology FAQ,” available at: https://www.firstsolar.com/-/media/First-Solar/Project-Documents/First-Solar-Thin-Film-Photovoltaic-FAQ.ashx.

[4] “Assessment of the Risks Associated with Thin Film Solar Panel Technology”, Virginia Tech Center for Coal and Energy Research, March 8, 2019, p. 5, available at: https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/handle/10919/90197.

[5] “Assessment of the Risks Associated with Thin Film Solar Panel Technology”, Virginia Tech Center for Coal and Energy Research, March 8, 2019, p. 8, available at: https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/handle/10919/90197.

[6] “Assessment of the Risks Associated with Thin Film Solar Panel Technology”, Virginia Tech Center for Coal and Energy Research, March 8, 2019, p. 8, available at: https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/handle/10919/90197.

[7] North Carolina State University, “Health and Safety Impacts of Solar Photovoltaics” (May 2017), p. 9, available at: https://content.ces.ncsu.edu/health-and-safety-impacts-of-solar-photovoltaics.

[8] Sinha, P., Balas, R., Krueger, L., and Wade, A. Fate and Transport Evaluation of Potential Leaching Risks from Cadmium Telluride Photovoltaics. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry. doi: 10.1002/etc. 1865. (2012), available at: https://setac.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/etc.1865.

Common Incorrect Statements Regarding Solar Panel Fire Risk

You may read online or hear in your community similar inaccurate statements regarding solar panel fire risk.

“Solar panels sometimes catch fire, releasing toxic smoke. Fires may also spread to our farmers’ crops, or put residents at risk.”

“Fires can also break out in solar developments due to damaged or faulty panels, dry leaves or birds building nests on or around the panels. These fires release toxic smoke and melted toxic metals. Solar panel fires are extremely dangerous for firefighters to deal with due to the risk of electric shock, and inhaling the toxic fumes.”

FACTS AND CREDIBLE SOURCES

Solar fire risk is minimal and does not threaten neighbors. Solar panels are made mostly of glass and aluminum and are not flammable. According to North Carolina State University, “[c]oncern over solar fire hazards should be limited because only a small portion of materials in the panels are flammable, and those components cannot self-support a significant fire.”[1]

Grange Solar will comply with applicable sections of the National Electric Code, which regulates electrical safety. There is no evidence given for the claims made that fires can start at solar facilities due to “damaged or faulty panels, dry leaves or birds building nests on or around the panels,” that such fires “release toxic smoke and melted toxic metals,” or that they are “extremely dangerous” for properly-trained firefighters.

Most of the news items being referenced on-line relate to rooftop solar, not ground-mounted solar like Grange Solar. Further, articles mostly address the complexities of fighting fires (whatever the cause) at buildings fitted with solar panels. A widely circulated article about a fire at a project in New York State misattributes the cause of the fire to solar when a careful read of the article clearly demonstrates that the fire was caused by on-site energy storage.

Resources:

[1] North Carolina State University, Health and Safety Impacts of Solar Photovoltaics (May 2017), p. 16, available at: https://content.ces.ncsu.edu/health-and-safety-impacts-of-solar-photovoltaics.

Common Incorrect Statements Regarding Noise

You may read online or hear in your community similar inaccurate statements regarding noise.

Construction “will include continuous drilling . . . .”

“The inverters will be running for more than 12 hours each day to harness the electricity.”

“The metal joints of the solar panels' moving apparatus may also break down due to weather or daily wear, causing a grinding noise.”

“Maintenance vehicles may also regularly visit these sites, causing extra noise and more than usual traffic.”

FACTS AND CREDIBLE SOURCES

Construction noise will be inconvenient at times, but operational noise will be minimal. Construction noise will be minimized by Grange Solar’s minimum setback of 300 feet from homes (the length of a football field) and use of other construction best practices (such as limiting the hours of construction).

The metal piles that will hold up the solar panels will be driven into the ground to a depth of about 10 feet using a small pile driver, but the activity will not be continuous and not last a long time in any particular location. One video/audio of this type of pile driver being circulated on-line was made only a few feet from the machine, but noise diminishes rapidly with distance, so it will be much quieter outside the project area than the video/audio suggests.

Because they have relatively few moving parts, solar facilities operate with minimal noise. Some of the equipment makes a modest amount of sound (for example, the central inverters located about every 20 acres), but the sound generally cannot be heard outside the fence. The central inverters at Grange Solar will be located at least 500 feet from any home of a person not participating in the project. Expert sound modeling of the proposed layout and equipment is required and reviewed by OPSB Staff. If an inverter did cause an issue following construction, it could readily be retrofitted to eliminate any bothersome noise. Additionally, as a condition of licensing for all solar projects, OPSB imposes limits to operating noise impacts from solar inverters.[1]

The Grange Solar team has been around operating solar facilities for years and has never experienced or even heard of anyone noticing a so-called “droning sound” at sunset or a “grinding noise” of broken trackers that some website and facebook pages claim (without evidence) will occur.

During operation, Grange Solar will have only occasional vehicle traffic for its operations (to conduct equipment inspections, grass maintenance, etc.). That traffic will be insignificant – on the order of having 2 or 3 new houses in the area.

Resources:

[1] Opinion, Order and Certificate, OPSB Case No. 20-1288-EL-BGN, Section VII.(14), available at: http://dis.puc.state.oh.us/TiffToPDf/A1001001A21C18B40239E01280.pdf