Tag Archives: solar

German Company To Build Cutting-Edge Solar Module Recycling Plant

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent

Easily lost amidst the excitement and thrill of building more solar capacity is a real concern: What do we do with the solar modules after the typical 25-year lifespan of a particular project?

Fortunately, thanks the the European Union, a German manufacturer is on the case and has built the first industrial-sized recycling pilot plant for an industrial company in its home country.

According to the website Phys.org:

With strong competencies in plant manufacturing and wastewater treatment including recycling, the Geltz Umwelt-Technologie firm has built a test and treatment facility at a large disposal firm to retrieve reusable materials from solar modules.

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Until now, recycling solar modules has been limited to the glass and the aluminum – ignoring all the valuable minerals that make up the heart of the module themselves. Fabian Gelz, a spokesman for GUT, said:

Up until now, there has not been any technical solution to recycle and separate the valuable materials from the mixed scrap. The critical step in the recycling process is therefore the destruction of the polymer layer.

Here’s where German engineering came in. According to the article, “ELSi came up with a novel solution to address this key issue. Using an energy-efficient pyrolysis process, project partners managed to dissolve the undesired polymer layers and easily detach the glass in the panels. This novel advanced process enabled them to successfully separate and recover aluminium, glass, silver, copper, tin and silicon in their pure form.”

“During the process of isolating and classifying materials, the fine materials were separated by sieves and air classifiers. To treat the exhaust gases of the mechanical process, project partners used a thermal afterburner and a quench system with a gas scrubber,” the article continued.

The article says that at its current capacity, the plant could recycle 50,000 solar modules a year and recapture 95% of the materials to be used as raw materials again.

Think about that for a minute: Not only is solar the clean energy of the future but, with this recycling technology (if it works) in place, it could also be the cleanest manufactured form of energy as well. That would make solar an absolute no-brainer – so let’s hope the plant works as advertised.

More:

State-of-the-art solar panel recycling plant

Could Oklahoma Be A Solar Boom State? New AG Opinion Says Maybe

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent

Baby steps.

That’s what you could call the Oklahoma Attorney General’s recent opinion that says third-party solar contracts – PPAs, leases and loans – would not result in solar installers or consumers being considered utilities.

This is a debate that has swept the country, and most recently occurred in Florida, where a decision similar to the Oklahoma one has led to a flood of residential solar companies into the state, including some of the nation’s largest solar companies with names you know like Sunrun and Vivint.

Could Oklahoma be next?

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Probably not, according to an article at NewsOK, but solar advocates in the state certainly see the attorney general’s decision as a step in the right direction.

Solar advocates told NewsOK:

“It has been viewed forever and ever that you couldn’t offer (those types of agreements) in Oklahoma,” said Tyson R. Taussig, president of the Oklahoma Renewable Energy Council.

“I view it as casting a glimmer of sunlight on this issue,” Taussig said. “If the opinion gets backed up, it will be a huge development because it will allow motivated, creditworthy individuals in our state to buy their own rooftop solar systems at a really reasonable price. It would open up a whole new market.”

It certainly shouldn’t be viewed as a done deal by any stretch of the imagination, of course. After all, Oklahoma is the heart and soul of oil and gas country, and a fight with traditional utilities and fossil-fuel interests is bound to ensue before solar gets too far off the ground. Plus, electricity rates in Oklahoma are dirt cheap.

(Longtime solar advocates will recognize these arguments from Florida, where cheap electricity and powerful utilities scotched solar for decades.)

But the fact that this decision could start a serious conversation about a significant solar market here is, in and of itself, newsworthy.

Mike Teague, Oklahoma’s Secretary of Energy and Environment, told NewsOK:

“Our goal is to find the right ways to do this,” adding that the task force deliberately includes all interested parties in an attempt to avoid future legal entanglements or other issues. He said he expects its work to continue for years.

“This is how you get progress without turning it into a fight, and I think that is what we need,” he said.

More:

Oklahoma attorney general opinion energizes solar enthusiasts

Nevada Comes All The Way Back, Bumps Into Net Metering Caps For First Tier

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent

What’s happening in Nevada right now is frankly amazing.

If you had told most observers that Nevada would ever hit net metering caps after its Public Utilities Commission ended the program without warning at the end of 2015, they would have told you that you were crazy.

And yet, three years (and a lot of mea culpas later), here we are, with the state’s installed and applied-for solar capacity hitting the cap for what’s allowed by law at full retail net metering rates.

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What that means is that any rooftop solar installation will at this point be compensated at 88% of the retail rate in what is being referred to as Tier 2. There are currently four tiers in Nevada’s net metering program.

Nevada’s solar industry has been ping-ponging between support and opposition for the solar industry since December 2015, when the state’s Public Utilities Commission abruptly ended net metering, which compensates solar users for the excess electricity they export back to the grid. It caused several national solar installers to pull out of the state and set off a firestorm of criticism from the state’s rooftop solar industry, which cratered in response.

Obviously, the ping-ponging has come to a stop, as rooftop solar has clearly taken off under the latest round of legislation. Solar Industry has the details on what’s next:

Under A.B.405, NEM customers in the Tier II category will receive an excess energy credit of 88% of the retail rate for the net excess electricity sent back to the grid and beyond what was delivered to them by Nevada utility NV Energy over the monthly billing period (as opposed to 95% in Tier I). Customers in the Tier II category may have the opportunity to move into Tier I through attrition and until Tier I closes. Tiers III and IV have rates of 81% and 75%, respectively.

All this activity comes as a ballot initiative moves forward in the state to raise the state’s renewable portfolio standard to 50% by 2030. If the latest numbers from the PUC are any indication, Nevada and its solar industry are healthy and growing – something that should excite solar advocates everywhere.

More:

Nevada Hits Milestone For Newly Revived Rooftop Solar Market

You Know Who’s Still Betting Heavily On Solar? Corporations, That’s Who!

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent

Corporate renewable energy procurement has hit a new record high in 2018, according to the Business Renewables Center, an arm of the Rocky Mountain Institute.

Procurement levels reached 3.57 GW, beating the previous record of 3.12 GW in 2015 and increasing nearly three quarters of a gigawatt ahead of last year’s number of 2.87 GW.

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Jon Creyts, managing director at Rocky Mountain Institute, said:

The Business Renewables Center applauds the acceleration of corporate renewable energy procurement and the dedication these companies are showing to turn commitment into action. We are bearing witness to unprecedented growth in this market, which is critical to achieving the goal of a clean, prosperous, and secure low-carbon economy.

Unsurprisingly, Facebook led the way, putting corporate procurement into record territory with the deal it announced last month to procure 437 megawatts (MW) of solar energy from Pacific Power for a data center in Oregon.

The announcement also claimed:

[This] highlights the growth of corporate-backed renewable energy transactions, which have totaled 13.52 GW in the U.S. since 2008, according to data collected by RMI’s Business Renewables Center. To date, BRC member companies have been involved in 99% of all U.S.-based non-utility transactions for renewable energy, and the number of corporates contracting directly for clean energy has grown from just four companies in 2013 to nearly 60 companies today.

The year-over-year growth is not unexpected, particularly given the difficult circumstances the solar industry found itself in last year with the tariff discussions. Corporations were waiting to see how the tariff situation would play out before deciding to move forward with solar procurement. What is most interesting, however, is that not only have the circumstances not changed significantly – the 30% tariffs are still in place – but the situation has gotten worse (with new 25% tariffs being imposed on inverters and modules).

And yet corporations are still investing in solar as their future – which is an indication that the Solar Revolution has moved beyond its strictly policy-driven past and into a future driven by pure economics. And that is something we can all agree is best for the solar industry in the long run.