Réglementation du recyclage de panneaux solaires

swissolar
Swissolar, l'Association suisse des professionnels de l'énergie solaire et SENS eRecycling ont signé un contrat de coopération, entrant en vigueur au 1er janvier 2014, afin de régler les aspects importants de la récupération et de l'élimination des modules photovoltaïques en Suisse.
Grâce à cette collaboration avec SENS eRecycling, Swissolar met à disposition de ses membres, mais aussi des commerces et des consommateurs, une solution de récupération et de recyclage respectueuse de l'environnement pour les modules photovoltaïques ainsi que pour leurs accessoires. Le tout régit par des contrôles stricts.
Communiqué de presse

Colorado orders Abound Solar to clean up hazardous waste at four sites

The Denver Post
Colorado health and environment officials have ordered Loveland-based Abound Solar, the bankrupt solar-panel maker, to clean up hazardous waste at four Front Range locations.The Abound facilities are storing thousands of "unsellable" solar panels and thousands of gallons of toxic liquids, according to Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment reports.
"The Department views these 2,000 pallets of solar panels as a characteristic hazardous waste for cadmium," a report on a Denver warehouse said. (...) The cost of the cleanup is estimated by the trustee to be $2.2 million.
(...) Abound stopped shipping nonfunctioning panels to a recycler in Wisconsin in February 2012 "due to cost constraints," according the bankruptcy trustee. Health-department inspectors found 3,600 pallets of Abound panels in a Denver warehouse and said a little more than half of them were not sellable. At Abound's former Longmont factory, inspectors found 30 55-gallon drums of cadmium-contaminated fluids and two large tanks with a total of 2,500 gallons of cadmium-contaminated water. At a Longmont warehouse, 500 pallets of defective panels were found by inspectors. And at a research-and-development facility, additional cadmium waste was found, Schieffelin said. "At both manufacturing facilities, there is a probability of cadmium contamination throughout the buildings," Schieffelin said.

Italian authorities investigate alleged illegal waste disposal at SunEdison PV power plant

PHOTON Info
Italian authorities have launched an investigation to determine whether an 11 MW PV power plant in the central Italian region of Lazio was used as an illegal dump site. According to newspaper Il Messaggero, local police and environmental authorities suspect the power plant site hosts illegal waste after they found non-compliant materials during an initial site survey.

The power plant in question, located in the municipality of Montalto di Castro, is owned by SunEdison Italia Srl, a subsidiary of US solar developer SunEdison. A press officer for SunEdison told PHOTON that the company was unaware of any wrongdoing, but she said if violations had occurred during construction, it would be the responsibility of Spanish construction company Montealto, whom SunEdison contracted to build the power plant: Until today, SunEdison was not aware of any violation of any environmental or other law in connection with the construction of the plant. SunEdison will do everything in its power to promptly correct any violations that may be identified. SunEdison will explore legal action against its former contractor or any of the subcontractors that may have breached any law during the construction of the plant.

JinkoSolar offers explanation, remediation for alleged toxic release at Haining PV cell factory

SolarServer
On September 15th - 17th, 2011 residents of Hongxiao, an adjacent village [to the Jinkosolar PV cell factory at Haining], gathered to protest the death of fish in a local waterway, with some protesters breaking into offices and destroying company property. On September 17th, 2011, JinkoSolar voluntarily closed the Haining plant.
Silicon wafer texturing and etching generate a fluoride solution as a by-product, which results in fluoride wastes. JinkoSolar (...) explained that a change in waste management contractors caused a delay in solid fluoride waste pickup, resulting in outdoor storage of waste. [D]ue to heavy rains in late August, fluoride waste "may" have leaked into a water channel near the factory.
JinkoSolar estimates that on September 5th, 2011, it became aware of the incident and commenced actions to clean up the affected area. The company isolated the water channel section and treated the affected water and soil, as well as constructing retaining walls, and building a water collection systems to prevent leakage. JinkoSolar has agreed to pay compensation for crop damage, as well as the death of any livestock or wildlife that may have been affected by the incident. It also notes that local environmental authorities are continually conducting water quality testing.

European Parliament exempts renewables from cadmium ban
The European Parliament has voted to exempt the solar industry and all other renewable technologies from a ban on the use of cadmium in the electronics industry. It is a victory for First Solar, the giant US company that is the biggest user of cadmium telluride in its thin-film panels, although the exclusion will be subject to a Commission review in 2014.

Comment: First Solar must have been worried. Apparently they were even considering moving into CIGS: [From Reuters] First Solar Inc, the world's largest thin-film solar panel producer, has set up a Silicon Valley lab for a thin-film technology [CIGS] with the potential for higher efficiency at a lower cost (...) First Solar acknowledged on Thursday it has a small research and development unit in Silicon Valley but declined to comment further.

Solar panels are a strong new source of polarized light pollution that creates ecological traps for many types of insect,
Solar power might be nature’s most plentiful and benign source of energy, but shiny black solar cells can lure water insects away from critical breeding areas, a Michigan State University scientist and colleagues warn.
Conventional solar cells share a problem with glass-clad buildings and other expanses of shiny dark surfaces – even vehicles. Reflected sunlight becomes polarized, or aligned in a single, often horizontal plane, which is how at least 300 species of insect recognize the surface of water bodies to lay their eggs.
Applying white grids or other methods to break up the polarized reflection of light, however, makes mayflies and other aquatic insects far less likely to deposit eggs on the panels thinking that they are water, the group discovered. (...) Robertson’s team estimates that adding white markings to solar cells might reduce their ability to collect solar energy by perhaps 1.8 percent, depending on the amount of space the strips cover.

Activist fears solar plant influx
Brian Brown, a founding member of the Amargosa Conservancy, expressed fears over the cumulative impact of numerous solar power plants that might turn the Mojave Desert into an industrial park. (...) "If the load centers, where they need the electricity, are Las Vegas and Los Angeles (...) why don't you build it there instead of coming out to remote areas or undisturbed public land, scraping it clean, then piping electricity or wiring it and shipping it for 70 or 80 miles?" Brown asked. (...) "Imagine every Walmart parking lot covered with shade," he said. "On top of it you just put solar panels, and every mall parking lot and every piece of asphalt and everybody's home, you could put that over it and you generate electricity." (...) The result could be "thousands of miles of photovoltaic panels. Everyone would get to look at them and share the view instead of just the folks in just a few desert communities (...) A lot of people think the desert is pretty nice as a desert -- why don't we leave it like this?"

Solar scorecard - How clean is the solar industry?

As the global economy transitions toward more renewable sources of energy, solar photovoltaics will play an increasingly prominent role. Because the generation of electricity from solar power produces no greenhouse gas emissions, it is widely considered to be "clean" energy.
In January 2009, the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (SVTC) launched a campaign to address these issues and has now published the Solar Score Card, an initial step in measuring companies' commitment to take responsibility for the impact of their products. [They] plan to update the scorecard annually to reflect the dynamic nature of the industry. The scorecard serves as a resource for institutional purchasers, investors, and consumers- anyone who wants to be sure that the solar PV panels they purchase are produced by companies that are responsible stewards throughout product lifecycles. The survey also enables companies to see where they rank relative to their competitors and where they need improvement.

New York Times: Desert Vistas vs. Solar Power
Senator Dianne Feinstein introduced legislation in Congress on Monday to protect a million acres of the Mojave Desert in California by scuttling some 13 big solar plants and wind farms planned for the region. (...) Not only is the desert land some of the sunniest in the country, and thus suitable for large-scale power production, it is also some of the most scenic territory in the West. The Mojave lands have sweeping vistas of an ancient landscape that is home to desert tortoises, bighorn sheep, fringe-toed lizards and other rare animals and plants.

Are some solar projects no longer ‘green’?
Solar companies proposing large power plants in the Mojave Desert are facing opposition from conservationists. They say a rush to build solar here threatens to tear up large tracts of desert habitat and open space. (...) Conservationists worry that a plan for the Mojave desert will upset species’ habitats (...) Desert’s defenders argue that solar panels should be located on city rooftops rather than pristine lands.

Solar power for toxic waste sites?
Why not set up utility-scale, renewable energy in polluted zones instead?
That's what the Environmental Protection Agency is proposing. (...) 850,000 acres it has cleaned up, among 15 million contaminated acres total, are exceptional destinations for clean-power companies, in part due to the low cost and existing infrastructure there. Plus, brownfields, former mines, etc are unattractive for most commercial and residential development, especially in rural areas.