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Solar PV module recycling

One of the questions about solar PV (photovoltaics) that I get asked is “what will be the negative environmental impact of solar PV modules (a.k.a. solar panels) when they’re not being used for power generation anymore?” “How about recycling?” This is an important question because:

some of the materials in the solar modules (e.g. lead and cadmium) could reach out and could harm the environment if they were buried as landfill waste. This is also true for other electronics, which is why there are free services for the public to drop off electronics for recycling (e.g. TVs, cell phones, microwaves, batteries).
some of the materials in solar PV modules are rare and will become harder and harder to find and mine (e.g. silver, gallium, indium, germanium).

The reason that the answer to this question isn’t yet publically well-known, or finding space in the news, is that solar PV installations are relatively young and the number of solar PV modules at the end of their life, ready for recycling, is relatively low. In 2007 there were less than 10GW (DC) of solar PV modules installed globally. That total has grown exponentially to over 300GW as of 2016. Based on 300W per solar module, that is 1 billion solar modules. Despite this high number of solar modules in service, we have yet to see the associated exponential climb in solar modules ready for recycling because solar modules have a life expectancy of 25-30 years, with some older installations still in service, producing power after more than 40 years. There are multiple PV recycling plants or businesses already operating with successful recycling of up to 90%-98% of the PV materials. The portion of recyclable materials that can be reclaimed, and the economics of recycling them, vary depending on the different chemistry of the solar module materials. Associations across the globe help to facilitate and grow the availability of solar PV recycling plants. These associations work with solar PV manufacturers, solar PV recyclers, and with governments to set up regulations to help ensure that solar PV modules are disposed of in an environmentally conscientious manner. For example, based in Europe, there is the PV CYCLE association. In 2012, Europe explicitly added solar PV to a list of electronic equipment that requires dedicated treatment at the end of their life, by law (WEEE directive – Waste of Electric and Electronic Equipment). For more information about solar PV recycling, check out Earth911, GreenMatch, ScienceDirect, Wikipedia, and PV CYCLE. -Steve Gladwin

New On-Farm Solar Photovoltaics Program Announced

Great News! The new On-Farm Solar PV funding program under the Alberta Agriculture and Forestry department has been released and are currently accepting applications for the On-Farm Solar PV funding program. The only program eligibility requirements are that the Customer is a resident of Alberta with a Distribution Rate Class of Farm, Irrigation, Grain Drying or Equivalent. This piece of information is available from the Wire Service Provider for the area of the Customer. The funding program is a migration from Alberta’s Growing Forward 2 services and programs. Under Growing Forward 2, approved projects had a deadline to complete and submit final reporting by March 31st, 2018 in order to receive the funding. The deadline has been lifted under Alberta Agriculture and Forestry in order for eligible Customers to apply for the grant right away and proceed with installations within a comfortable timeline. The On-Farm Solar PV program funding is calculated as followed, no system size restrictions:

System sizes up to 100kW DC capacity:
- $0.75/Watt up to a maximum of 35% of the total installation cost.
System sizes between 100kW – 150kW DC capacity:
- First 100kW at $0.75/Watt up to a maximum of 35% of the total installation cost.
- Remainder capacity at $0.56/Watt up to a maximum of 27% of the total installation cost.
System sizes above 150kW DC capacity:
- Funding covered only up to 150kW at the two rates list above.

Before applying into the program, the Customer would need to select a solar PV contractor. Dandelion Renewables is a proud member of the recommended list of contractors for the On-Farm Solar PV program. Upon selecting Dandelion Renewables as their on-farm solar PV contractor, we take these following steps in securing the funding and completing the installation:

Sign a Supply and Installation Agreement between the Customer and Dandelion Renewables.
Provide final design of the solar PV system with the creation of the electrical wiring diagram, site plan, and engineered drawings.
Fill out and send the AUC Microgeneration Application to the Customer’s Wire Service Provider for an Interconnection Agreement.
After receiving the Interconnection Agreement, we fill out the On-Farm Solar PV Program application for the Customer and send the application with all supporting documents for funding approval.
After the funding approval letter has been received by the Customer, we can proceed with getting a hold of all the construction permits and then on to installation and commissioning the system.
Dandelion Renewables will send the final report to Alberta Agriculture and Forestry on behalf of the Customer, after which Alberta will deposit the funds into a bank account of the Customer’s choosing.

If you are an Alberta farmer and would like to discuss more details of this program and how it works, provide you a quote of the system cost or even if you are inquiring about solar PV, how a system works, or how it can help save energy costs, please do not hesitate to contact us. We would be pleased to answer any questions you may have. Look forward to hearing from you!

Taking back Control of costs through Solar

I was at the supermarket the other day, shopping for my weekly groceries when I strolled into the seafood section. One thing I haven’t bought in a while was a piece of Pacific Salmon. The kind of piece that you cut up into steaks or cook as one large fillet with just the right amount of herbs and spices. My mouth started watering as I entered that area and thinking of the cuisine possibilities. I was shocked to see that the average price for a piece was $35. It wasn’t that long ago that I remember paying $25 for one. Needless to say, I didn’t get it and I walked out saddened by the cost and hungry. It got me thinking about and noticing the trend of increasing the cost of everyday items and how we as everyday consumers are powerless to control that. It is happening to the costs of food, gas, utilities, taxes, insurance, bank fees, entertainment, etc., the list is endless. Of course, it could be inflation, but I believe salaries have not changed based on the public census. In our neck of the woods, some might have seen a pay decrease in fact. I am someone who refuses to give in to this trend and think of creative measures of taking back control of my everyday expenses. I was able to do that with my utilities and I took a closer look at how I consumed energy. It was not a hard change and in very little time it became a habit for me. Along with changing the whole household to LED light bulbs, I saw a 30% average reduction in my energy and water bills. My payback on the initial cost of the LED light bulbs was 5 months. I am currently experimenting the same with vehicle gas mileage just by changing my driving habits. I am noticing a small change but it is still early. That is one of the greatest appeals with solar PV, for me at least. It provides me with that freedom and gives me control over how I consume energy and cost. I do not have a household solar PV system. If I owned the house I currently live in, it would be the first on a list of household improvement projects. I do however own a travel trailer which I use often to embed myself in nature and experience the clean, off-grid, minimalist lifestyle as much as possible. A powered site nowadays costs between $37-$42 dollars per night. An unpowered site costs between $25-$27/night. The choice was simple for me when the difference in cost was that substantial. The total would add up to a $54 savings on average for a 3-5 day camping trip. That’s the equivalent of one full tank of gas for my car. The battery bank on the trailer wouldn’t last if I went 3 full days so I bought myself a solar PV charging kit which included the solar modules, wiring and charge controller. The solar PV module was sufficient to keep a charge in the batteries, with more than enough power to run lights, the water pump and other small devices. The solar system gave me that ability to live almost fully sustainable on the road. The solar system was an additional tool in the constant pursuit of freedom and control of the ever-rising living costs. I am not the first to install such a system with plenty of people doing it themselves. I am excited that more and more RV travellers are installing these with it gaining popularity year by year I am certain the same is achievable with a grid-tie or off-grid residential system. It will be an evitable household project of mine. Installing a larger scale solar system for my house will put me in the driver’s seat of controlling my costs and expenses and will help prepare me for the unknown. Very Exciting! – Arjun M

Agricultural Energy-Efficiency

You may have seen graphs, articles, videos etc. telling you how much energy is consumed by the agricultural sector. It’s not our business to tell you what you should eat, but it is our business to help you lower your energy use, generate your own energy and save money while doing it. The question we want to answer is: WHERE is all that energy consumed and what can be done about it? This is quite the question to unpack in a single article! Agriculture is a huge industry with many sub-industries such as fertilizer production, grain farming, dairy farms, slaughterhouses, processing and packaging. We’ll go over a few of the more common industries and you can make inferences as to what the other industries may consume. The handy graphic below from the American Institute of Bioscience (AIB) gives a great overview of where energy is consumed in crop production. (1)

Since the majority of energy is used in the production and distribution of nitrogen fertilizers, AIB found that converting to no-till farming with a legume cover crop could reduce energy use by 37%. A low hanging fruit that can offer great payback is reducing the energy used in grain drying. Note that this is an American study and may miss some of the main consumers in rural Alberta such as irrigation pumps. In arid regions, installing energy-efficient water pumps, or even solar power irrigation pumps, can result in significant savings. In the case of dairy farms, about 50% of the energy used is electricity and 50% natural gas. The below graphs from the Alberta government (2) give an overview of where that energy is consumed.

Energy consumed by dairy farms — Dairy farm overview of where energy is consumed.

Primary energy efficiency measures to consider here are: high-efficiency water boilers, high-efficiency pumps in milking operation, well designed, efficient refrigeration systems and a well-designed ventilation system. Lastly, on pork farms, the split is more like 62% natural gas, 38% electricity.

Pork farm consumed energy — Pork farm overview of where energy is consumed.

Space heating and ventilation go hand in hand here. A well-insulated barn with the right controls and ventilation fans can result in better energy efficiency and thousands of dollars in energy savings. Key technologies that may be applicable on your farm are:

Variable frequency drives
High-efficiency fans
High-efficiency hot water heaters
Proper control systems
High-efficient water pumps

More than any technology, though, it’s a critical review of your energy use that will make you savings. As with any energy efficiency measure, it starts with an awareness of where your energy is used, best practices, good habits follow and technology is the final piece. Check out our article on the Growing Forward 2 program from the Alberta government regarding on-farm energy efficiency and generation (such as solar) and our portfolio of energy efficiency case studies.

References

Energy Use and Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Crop Production Using the Farm Energy Analysis Tool . Richard, Gustavo G. T. Camargo Matthew R. Ryan Tom L. 2013, BioScience.
Alberta Government. Growing Forward 2 Factsheets.

Alberta Residential and Commercial Solar Program Updates

In early December 2018 we received an update with the current numbers for the Alberta Residential and Commercial Solar Program rebates as follows:

322 solar power projects funded

234 applications under consideration

Average project sizes, for both solar systems under consideration and ones that have been funded:

Residential solar: 7.2 KW, Commercial solar: 370 KW (with large variation in commercial project sizes)

Projects by major centres (Residential):

Calgary = 70, Edmonton = 80, Lethbridge = 12, Medicine Hat = 16, Red Deer = 5, Fort McMurray = 2

Projects by area (Commercial):

Calgary = 1, Edmonton = 2, Red Deer = 1, Lethbridge = 4, Daysland = 1, Three Hills = 1, Fort Assiniboine = 1, Linden = 1, Westlock = 1, Fort McMurray = 1

Given that the program details were announced in the end of June 2017, solar installation numbers are looking strong across the province from the second half of the 2017 solar installation season. The program is expected to run for 2 years, unless the $36-million budget will be used up sooner.

Dandelion Renewables takes pride in seeing some of our commercial solar projects included in the commercial list.

Although the update does not give us the full picture of the funding allocation, we wanted to answer couple of questions for ourselves:

How much of the total $36 million program budget has already been allocated in the total of 556 projects?
How many additional MW of solar capacity is under consideration for residential and commercial projects?

To answer to these questions we had to assume a 5% ratio of commercial projects to residential solar projects. That is, out of 100 projects under the program consideration, 5 projects will be commercial solar projects and 95 will be residential solar projects.

Under this assumption and given the average project sizes we estimated that 9.4MW of commercial solar energy projects and 3.8MW of residential solar projects are currently being added to the grid within the solar rebate program.

Further, assuming that all residential solar projects qualify for $0.75/W rebate, while commercial solar projects qualify for 25% rebate we estimated that $7.5 million of the total $36 million program funding has been allocated to date.

Energy-Efficiency Portfolio

Dandelion Renewables began by conducting energy-efficiency studies for residential and commercial customers. Since then, we have had one or two energy-efficiency projects running at a time. Below is a portfolio of some of our energy-efficiency achievements and projects we have completed:

Residential electrical energy assessments including energy monitoring, equipment installations, upgrade of furnace motors, and lighting upgrades.
Commercial energy audits (heat, power, water) for auto-mechanics shops, warehouses, hotels, and breweries, which include an energy savings 5-year financial plan.
Agricultural energy assessments (heating and power) for dairy barns, vegetable storage buildings, grain producers, chicken barns, livestock, and greenhouses. Some of our projects started prior to the AB Growing Forward: On-farm Energy Management Program, and served as a model for establishing the program in Alberta. The rest of our projects were completed with the support from the program’s funding.
AB Pork project: energy audit for 38 pork facilities across Alberta, an overview of the best energy-efficient technologies, feasibility study for 7 renewable technologies in the application for the pork industry and net-zero barn designs (heating, electrical, ventilation, feed, lighting).
AB Crop Project: energy audit (power, heating, lighting, water, waste) for different sizes of greenhouses to determine the best energy-saving strategies.
Potato Storage Energy Efficiency: pilot demonstration project for evaluation of the efficiency of modern ventilation technologies in AB Potato Storage Buildings, including installation and monitoring of the energy consumption prior to, and after improvements were implemented.

We developed proprietary energy models for each business segment to replicate industry-specific consumption behavior, calculate power and natural gas bills, model energy savings and rank financial benefits of each energy-efficiency recommendation. Over 1,000 copies of our energy-efficiency publications were printed and distributed by the government.

Read more about our energy assessment services.

Off-grid Solar Power Design Innovations

A heap of off-grid solar power systems were installed in Saskatchewan, Alberta and especially in British Columbia decades ago. They used to be the only solar electric options available before net metering and micro-generation regulations took place. Some of these old systems still operate nowadays and there is a generation of off-grid solar installers who grew up building and maintaining these systems.

As solar system components become older, off-grid system owners start wondering if and when it would be worthwhile to upgrade the solar systems versus keeping and maintaining the older solar system. To help with this challenging decision process, we decided to share some of our thoughts in comparing the older off-grid solar designs and the new technologies.

If your off-grid solar system still works well and meets your electricity demand, you did a great job in maintaining it over the years and choosing a good solar installer in the first place. In this case, you may just be curious what has a potential to break first?

The most frequent reason for a system upgrade is a battery failure. Loosing only one battery in a large battery bank is very unfortunate as replacing just one bad battery may be a very short-term bandage-type solution, while replacing the entire battery bank is very costly. Inverters and charge controllers have a much longer life, but they eventually fail too. Solar panels (PV modules) are degrading 0.5%-1% every year and PV technology evolve with higher-efficiency modules produced today compared say 10 years ago. Finally, electrical codes underwent substantial changes for solar power, including off-grid solar.

A new 300W 60-cell solar panel can replace a high efficiency 5-year old solar panel of 180W and it can be done at a significantly lower cost per Watt. This creates an opportunity to utilize the same racking, adding charge controller capacity while increasing the system DC size. Charge controllers without MPPT (maximum power point tracking) need to be replaced by new charge controllers to be compatible with voltages of new modules.

Affordability of new PV modules dictates new considerations for racking type and array locations. In the past it was the most economical to install solar panels at the optimal tilt by building rooftop structures and 2-axis trackers. Now it is often far cheaper to install extra PV modules on a vertical wall or on an awning racking, than investing in more expensive racking to optimize the tilt. Lower tilted roofs are not a good option for off-grid solar systems at all as the solar panels will become covered in snow when solar energy is needed most.

DC-coupled systems were the standard design in the past. The attributes of those designs are short DC strings, combined efficiency losses at charge controllers – batteries – inverters, sophisticated logic for integration of additional DC sources. New AC Coupled systems provide much better efficiencies and more flexibility in integrating addition solar energy sources.

Batteries have evolved over the years with more choices available today. We would like to especially note two battery technologies with improved battery life that are well suited for off-grid solar PV systems: carbon-enhanced lead acid and lithium ion. Nowadays, the owner to have the ability to choose battery technology depending on the application and willingness of the owner to maintain the battery.

Last, but certainly not least in solar innovation is a development of multiple energy monitoring, data logging equipment and systems automation. All major inverter manufacturers have monitoring devices that can be connected to the internet and be accessed online. Data logging capabilities of off-grid solar systems significantly simplify the troubleshooting and they help with the solar system preventive maintenance.

Alberta Indigenous Solar and Community Energy Program

On October 5th, 2016, the Alberta Government launched The Alberta Indigenous Solar Program and Community Energy Program. The programs will provide grants to Alberta native communities and organizations to support solar energy systems and energy efficiency on facilities owned by Indigenous or organizations of the First Nations people. Alberta Indigenous Solar Program provides funding for up to 60% of eligible expenses up to a maximum of $200,000 per project. The applications opened on October 5th, 2016 and will remain open for submission until $2.5M program grant funding is exhausted. Alberta Indigenous Community Energy Program provides 100% funding for energy assessments up to a maximum of $90,000 per project. Key Eligibility Requirements:

Applicable for native communities, indigenous-led organizations, including friendship centers, and indigenous community-owned businesses.
Solar power systems greater than or equal to 2 kilowatt DC and less than or equal to 1 megawatt DC in installation capacity.
Energy assessments for Indigenous community-owned buildings.
Solar systems must be completed within one year of signing the grant application.

More information can be found at Alberta Indigenous Solar And: Alberta Indigenous Community Energy Program

Growing Forward On-Farm Solar PV Program is Announced

Growing Forward 2 On-Farm Solar PV program was announced today. The program funding will apply to micro-generation sites, where generated on-farm solar power will be used to offset the farm power consumption. The focus of this incentive will be on supporting both the environmentally friendly energy generation and energy efficiency. Mikhail

The level of funding depends on whether an energy assessment was conducted and if a PV contractor installs the system. The funding will be limited by $50,000 per system and the total program budget is $0.5M in this fiscal year. The funding must be allocated before March 31, 2016, and will be paid in advance of the installation based on the supply and installation contract signed and an executed micro-generation interconnection agreement. More info can be found at On-Farm Solar PV program This program follows a 2-year Solar PV Pilot program that Growing Forward 2 funded in 2011 and 2012 fiscal years. The last program was so successful that all the funding was allocated within weeks. By developing a new solar incentive program, the On-Farm Energy team once again prove that they are the ultimate leaders in Alberta for supporting renewable energy and energy efficiency. The impact of that support goes further and in the long-term minimizes Alberta farmer’s dependency on commodity prices.

Solar Powered Carport

Solar-powered carport could be a great option if a homeowner:

needs a shelter for the car, or
is concerned with high prices on new garage construction in Alberta, or
has limitations from municipal regulations or fire safety considerations, or
plans to purchase a plug-in EV in the future.

Solar carport will generate for a homeowner electricity for many years to come. For a city home with an average annual power consumption a double car carport can generate as much as a household consumes over the year. That means, throughout a year the solar carport can offset 100% the power bill energy charge. In addition to the long-term savings on the power bill, a solar carport will also provide plenty of natural ventilation for your car. More ventilation protects your car in the long-term from moisture and rust. Finally, consider that the cost of the carport structure with a turn-key solar power installation is currently on par with a cost of a new garage construction. Combined with the mentioned long-term benefits, solar power carports become a good alternative for garages in Alberta.