Brian Sadler talks about how solar energy contributes to the reduction of Massachusetts’ carbon footprint, local solar initiatives, recyclability of solar panels, the lifespan of solar panels, and emerging trends in solar energy sustainability.
John Maher: Hi, I am John Maher and I’m here today with Brian Sadler, Vice President at Solaris Renewables, a Solar company in Massachusetts providing premium solar and storage technologies with exceptional customer service and designing, installing and servicing solar systems in Massachusetts, Southern New Hampshire and Maine. Today we’re talking about environmental impact and sustainability of solar panels. Welcome, Brian.
Brian Sadler: Hi, John. Good to be with you today.
Reducing the Carbon Footprint in Massachusetts
John: You too. So Brian, how does solar energy contribute to reducing the carbon footprint in Massachusetts overall?
Brian: It has a significant environmental impact that’s positive and the underlying motivation for a lot of folks to look at solar and other renewables. So having a solar system on your house allows you to have energy independence. You’re not relying on the grid and you’re actually producing power and oftentimes supplying the grid so that your friends and neighbors are getting power from your solar system during certain parts of the day. So it offsets the demand on either burning coal or natural gas, or other fossil fuels, that are burned to make the electricity.
And then here in Massachusetts we have significant support for renewables, specifically solar. And the state has made it really clear that, due to the fact we don’t source any fossil fuels here and we now burn only natural gas in the state, that solar is heavily relied upon for not only the individual’s energy independence, but for the state’s energy independence, and gives us some security against the fossil fuel market as well.
Local Solar Initiatives
John: Are there any local initiatives or community solar projects that you guys support?
Brian: Sure. We don’t actively play in the community solar space given that we don’t install those types of systems. But for instance, I live in Beverly, Massachusetts, and there was a local company that did a large installation on an old landfill, which is great land use for solar and renewable installations. And that allowed folks that want to take part in that and support that on their own, that they can receive discounted utility rates by participating in the community solar program. For us, we do mostly small commercial and residential installations, and we had an energy giveaway that we’ve done over the years where we have folks in the community nominate who they think would be a good recipient of a free solar system. And so we had a contest, which was a lot of fun, and we got a lot of great applicants, and we gave a solar system to a single mom who lived here locally, and then another local church that did a lot of community action and environmental education and impact.
So those are a couple of the initiatives that we’ve done here locally to have an impact on the community for learning about solar and showing the impact of solar as well.
Recyclability and Disposal of Solar Panels
John: Can you talk a little bit about the recyclability or disposal of solar panels once they reach the end of their useful life?
Brian: Sure. That’s a question that we do hear about a lot, is a lot of folks that are concerned about the sustainability of solar panels and the products they’re getting on the roof and, “what do I do at the end?” “How long is this going to last and then what do I do?” So, what happens is that some manufacturers, that are US based typically speaking, actually have a program for taking the product back.
Other manufacturers don’t, but they will also…there’s become an emerging market for recycling panels themselves. A lot of companies will take panels that still prove to have good life left in them and they’ll ship them over to developing countries that are looking to make microgrids and that don’t have any infrastructure for electricity. And instead of building a conventional utility grid with a power plant, they’re looking to localize that and truly distribute that generation really locally in little microgrids. So a small community in Africa, for instance, in a developing country, that it’s a lot more effective and sustainable to bring in a small solar system and directly distribute that power locally to the residents.
John: So you might not want the panels on your roof anymore once they’re only producing, say, 70% of the power that they used to produce, or something like that, but perfectly fine for a village in Africa that might not even have panels at all.
Brian: Or have any power at all. And maybe it takes more panels to get to the place they need, but if they’re at a discounted cost that it makes sense to just, okay, we’re just going to add another 10, 100, 1,000 panels depending on the scale and the scope that we’re getting them either at free or very low cost and they were able to still deliver electricity.
So then there are the ones that are testing them and the ones that are not producing or appear to be under-producing, not as effective or showing more end of life indicators, they break the panels down, they take the aluminum, any of the metals out of the cells themselves and the silicon can be recycled as well. There’s glass, aluminum, there’s some metals in the panels, and then the silicon itself, and all of that product can be 100% recycled.
The Expected Lifespan of Solar Panels
John: What is the expected lifespan of solar panels that you might put on your roof right now?
Brian: That’s another great question, and one that we get often because, typically speaking, everyone talks about 25 years. Because we talked about, on another episode, that the warranties are 25 years, but the expected life is really more in the area of 40 years. And it depends on the panel and the manufacturer, but typically speaking, the panels decline over time and they have what’s called a degradation rate and they start at X percentage of their stated value in year one, decline over time, and then in year 25 when the warranty is up, they should be operating somewhere between 80 and 90% of their year one value, which is, I mean, it blows my mind a lot of the times thinking that they’re still that productive 25 years from now. So even as they decline further over time, you would expect, like you brought up 70%, and I think that’s a great number to think of, like when is this panel going to be operating at 70% is what the industry terms as the useful life.
And that can be 40 or more years. So a lot of times these panels do have a lot longer effective life than we consider. So I would say 40 to 50 years is a good expectation for your solar system.
John: Certainly a lot longer than the battery on my iPhone, which I think is at 80% now.
Brian: Exactly.
John: Good. That 25 or 40 years, like you said, is a really long time to expect a panel to last and still producing a pretty good amount of its original energy.
Brian: Absolutely. Think about vehicles. When’s the last time you got a… Or any product. When’s the last time you got a 25 year warranty on any product that you’ve purchased?
Trends in Solar Energy Sustainability
John: Right. Are there any emerging technologies or trends in solar energy sustainability now?
Brian: I think we see incremental improvements annually, and every few years. So panels keep pushing the envelope and getting higher wattages. They get incrementally more efficient. I think aesthetics, they try to make them look nicer for the applications, especially in residential homes.
And we see a lot of the electronics. We are thinking about what this whole energy system can do for our homes and our businesses. So there’s a lot more integrations. Smart homes. A lot of connectivity. And as these develop and they start to have different peripherals that you can add to your energy system, be it batteries, EV chargers, smart panels.
And then there’s smart home peripherals. Some of the inverter companies that also make batteries as well. Also they have water heater connectivity that helps throttle back the usage of the water heater, when that makes sense. They have connectivity to outlets and lighting, things like this. So you can really start to layer that in as well. And I think we’re just going to continue to see more of that as time goes on.
John: I know in terms of the manufacturing of the panels themselves, obviously there’s some mining that has to happen for some of the materials or some fossil fuels that maybe are used in the manufacturing process, but are some of the panel manufacturers now actually trying to be more sustainable and actually using non-fossil fuel energy in order to create the panels? Is that happening more and more now?
Brian: It is. It is. And that’s something that we take a serious look at as well when we’re looking at partnerships and who we want to hook our wagon to, because this is a sustainable space and we want to make sure that we’re using products that make sense and have a lesser impact on the earth. So, for sure.
There’s actually ratings. So there’s a sustainability score that comes out every year and it rates every solar panel manufacturer in the world. It rates them on things like their energy usage, their material sourcing, and how they handle that. Even how they handle people and their employees and water usage, another big one, how responsible are they with their water usage? And then we’ve only used folks that rank at the top or way up in terms of that. The one manufacturer that we partner with now is the only what’s called “silver”, it’s the highest level called cradle-to-cradle certified, meaning that it has the lowest possible impact for manufacturing process on any product in the industry.
They also take their panels back for recycling as well. So it’s really a much more sustainable product because there are products out there that aren’t as sustainable, that are less responsible, just like every industry. So the ones that we work with have a very high or the highest sustainability score.
John: All right, that’s great information, Brian. Thanks again for speaking with me today.
Brian: Thank you, John.
John: And for more information, you can visit the website at solarisrenewables.com or call 781-270-6555.