Solar Panels and their 2nd Lives

[trad]

Snail trail solar panels, and blemished panels with cracked and scratched vinyl back-sheets have become available on the used market. These panels are not new, but still have many kwh left to contribute.

What happens when Solar Star, Antelope Valley, Topaz Solar or Desert Sunlight suddenly dump millions of panels? These huge megawatt projects were commissioned in 2014 - 2016. They will soon be 10 years old. While it would be nice for solar panels to all work 100% up to their death day, and in one fell swoop, all fail at the same instant, this is unlikely. At some point the degradation will be sufficient that the solar farm will be replacing a huge number of panels all at once.

When this happens, the number of used panels available will be massive. Some will be so far gone that they will be crushed. But some will still have a significant number of years left.

At some point:
1. The law of supply and demand will force the price per used panel to drop significantly.
2. The existing used panel distribution structure will be unable to swallow the massive number of panels and efficiently re-market them.

What is your prediction of how soon this will really ramp up, and how big a problem it will be?

 

[#40Fan]

I think by that time, it will be like owning a CRT TV. Still works fine, no one wants one and the government will charge you to throw it away.

 

[sunsurfer]

The wild card will be the price/availability of silver going forward. Chances are, those panels will be scrapped for the silver content which is significant. Likely still out performing their non-silver replacements (sq ft vs watt). That could make the difference on replacement that pushes them to full life service in solar farms.

 

[trad]

The auto industry is a good example for recycling as almost nothing escapes the crusher eventually, and prior to that, the used market continually wrings the last bit of juice out every car. We will have to create that for solar panels.

Logistics costs will be the significant part, and as long as the value of the panels is greater than the logistics costs, we can keep them out of landfills. A solar farm in the desert of California is a long way from a 2nd life in New York. The shipping costs will be at least $5 per panel.

What I don't understand is how the future solar panels will compare to today's with regard to longevity. I think we can be assured they will get better as they get cheaper.

Does anyone know of any large panel deactivation projects yet? What project did the snail trail panels come from?

 

[JoeHam]

https://www.santansolar.com/ is just one company picking up panels from deactivated sites or projects that are repaneling. They’ve been doing this for years now.

A few years ago I got some 255 W panels from them for $37 each or about 14.5 cents per watt. Output was/is good.

They wouldn’t say where they source the panels from since that could drive other bids and increase their cost and I can’t blame them.

At some price the old panels have value as these did for me. If they couldn’t sell them then recycling for the silver would make sense but I think they know the market, then bid to buy and price to sell accordingly.

IF prices get below 10 cents/ watt I imagine people with enough space to use them would snap them up.

 

[timselectric]

All of my panels come from SanTan Solar.

 

[hwy17]

The large farms will just send them straight to the landfill, ahem, sorry, I mean "recycler" (wink).

 

[cs1234]

The regulations on solar installation seems like it would / is holding back the used market for panels/equipment. Not only that, but most solar installation companies will only install their own stuff.. forcing you to DIY or try to find the rare electrician willing to work on them.

 

[trad]

Grind them up, what a waste of perfectly good panels. 975 MW of panels head to the crusher.

 

[trad]

https://www.santansolar.com/ is just one company picking up panels from deactivated sites or projects that are repaneling. They’ve been doing this for years now.

A few years ago I got some 255 W panels from them for $37 each or about 14.5 cents per watt. Output was/is good.

They wouldn’t say where they source the panels from since that could drive other bids and increase their cost and I can’t blame them.

At some price the old panels have value as these did for me. If they couldn’t sell them then recycling for the silver would make sense but I think they know the market, then bid to buy and price to sell accordingly.

IF prices get below 10 cents/ watt I imagine people with enough space to use them would snap them up.

Yes, but Santan Solar can't handle 975 MW from these big farms. That's several million panels. We need 2nd life solar at scale.

 

[timselectric]

SanTan Solar is just one company. They don't have to do it all.

 

[cs1234]

There are only so many DIY'ers to go around. Us DIY'ers don't have enough time / land to use all 10 million of those panels, and they aren't really allowed to be used by anybody else. Honestly, they should just be left hooked up and new solar farms should be built.. the permitting / costs to do so need to be improved.

 

[xy74]

I just got some panels from Santan. The brochure for the panel was from 2017. Panels look to be in very good condition, so really makes me wonder why they were replaced after 5 years. Perhaps more tax credits?

 

[timselectric]

It's always about money.

 

[cs1234]

Maybe they lease the panels, and the lease was up.

 

[BuffaloTrace]

Trickle down economics.

 

[ResidentialpanelonRV]

Snail trail solar panels, and blemished panels with cracked and scratched vinyl back-sheets have become available on the used market. These panels are not new, but still have many kwh left to contribute.

What happens when Solar Star, Antelope Valley, Topaz Solar or Desert Sunlight suddenly dump millions of panels? These huge megawatt projects were commissioned in 2014 - 2016. They will soon be 10 years old. While it would be nice for solar panels to all work 100% up to their death day, and in one fell swoop, all fail at the same instant, this is unlikely. At some point the degradation will be sufficient that the solar farm will be replacing a huge number of panels all at once.

When this happens, the number of used panels available will be massive. Some will be so far gone that they will be crushed. But some will still have a significant number of years left.

At some point:
1. The law of supply and demand will force the price per used panel to drop significantly.
2. The existing used panel distribution structure will be unable to swallow the massive number of panels and efficiently re-market them.

What is your prediction of how soon this will really ramp up, and how big a problem it will be?

I'm not sure if you have looked into the difference between Commercial/Residential and RV panels....but I have two Trina brand 405w residential panels on my RV. They came with a 25 year warranty to maintain at least 80% efficiency.

This doesn't change your question much, but it does mean that your timing may be off for up to 15 years. Unless there is corporate policy to replace panels at 10 years, I would highly expect there to not be a significan replacement of panels for at least 20 years.

 

[Solar Guppy]

All of my panels come from SanTan Solar.

Me too, and I bought them before you did

 

[ksmithaz1]

Yes, but Santan Solar can't handle 975 MW from these big farms. That's several million panels. We need 2nd life solar at scale.

Nobody is going to tear out 975MW of panels overnight, don't be silly. Capital equipment is generally replaced in phases. Likely over the course of 3-7 years. The exception to that would be some sort of disruptive technological breakthru that might accelerate it, but more likely the worst producing / oldest arrays would be targeted first, and get replaced with newer better technology higher output units, along with upgrading the stuff behind them to support the increased output. 1GW is three MILLION 300W panels. You'd have to replace ~10000/day to get rid of them in a year. If you picked something like 50000/mo that would be roughly a 5-year cycle. You are going to keep quite a number of people seriously busy ripping out and replacing over 1500 panels a day (7 days a week).

I don't think they put them all in overnight either. To the original point, I think we will start to see more and more used panels floating in the pipeline as time moves forward, and there will be more SanTan Solar's gobbling them up and re-selling them. I bought my NEW 455W panels from SanTan, as they are just down the road. I picked up 16 used 250W CS panels from a guy that upgraded his rooftop array for a couple hundred bucks. They appear to be 10ish years old. One was flakey. Rated watts to production watts, the new panels are significantly better:


A/B-PV1/2 are 8x455 New SolarEver's A/B-PV3 are 7/8x330W CS panels. Breaking out the napkin and looking at peak output:

8x455 = 3640
3395/3640 = .9326 ... Around 93% of rated peak.
8x250 = 2000
1804/2000 = .9020 ... So 90%.

But this doesn't tell the whole story. If you look at the graphs above you see they have a narrower production window. The four 8x455 strings pretty much produce in lock step, they are on a 2/12 pitch roof facing south, ever so slightly east. I've now pitched the 8x250 array (B-PV3, dark blue above) slightly west ~10deg pitch for better afternoon exposure, and the 7x250 (light blue) is pitched 30deg dead west. 9/3 is the best look, I lose production after 1300 beause I've no place to store it. I need to steal some battery from @timselectric .

I've got daily production totals now in my database (below). Anything on or before 8/15th is junk, I was still fighting the modbus polling, and moving around the strings. I should probably make the colors more consistent,


So 2000/3640 = 55%, so B-PV3 (light blue above) should be a little past half way up the darker bars. It's more like half most days, though there are a few days where it's close. They do not do nearly as well with cloud cover, but other than the fact they pig up so much more room/watt, I can't complain. They basically allow me to charge my cars during the day on the weekend, and still have a full charge on the insufficient batteries when the sun goes down. Now all I need is some satellite photo's of tim's place, bulletproof vest, big wire cutters, flatbed with a forklift, a distraction. ;-)

If you have the real estate to put them used panels are definitely worth considering. San Tan will warranty their used panels.

 

[ksmithaz1]

I just got some panels from Santan. The brochure for the panel was from 2017. Panels look to be in very good condition, so really makes me wonder why they were replaced after 5 years. Perhaps more tax credits?

Density more likely. There is a very large solar array next to my office near a (big) bakery. Several hundred panels. Suppose you put in 300W units, but now you can put 400+ watt units in the same area, and the cherry on top is they are actually more efficient So you go from 90KW to 120+KW but more importantly this extends your output above your demand threshold 30 minutes to 1 hour later in the day. This could be a significant amount of money, in particular you may have already amortized the cost of the original panels/system or have a small chunk of depreciation left. You just run a new CapEx. They just raised rates here in AZ, and it's likely to happen again within the next 5-7 years. So you dump $75K for some newer panels and save $3K / mo in prime time usage at your bakery.