How Green Is Solar Panels

Enthusiasts for solar energy which is the use of sunlight to heat water and generate electricity stress its environmental credentials and suggest the widespread adoption of solar is an answer to some of humanity s greatest environmental challenges like climate change.

How green is solar panels. The manufacturing side of solar can be very un green since its energy intensive processes are often powered by fossil fuel based electricity. Solar photovoltaic generating electricity from sunlight has been growing the fastest driven by technological advances that bring prices down as much as by government policies such as feed in tariffs 1 world reached 25 renewable energy capacity sis 49. Solar power captures the sun s energy by using photovoltaic cells and transparent photovoltaic glass to generate electricity. Then there s the landfill legacy being created by wind turbine blades with the first world cynically using the.

To create a solar panel caustic materials will emit greenhouse gases. Solar panels are manufactured at 2 000 c a temperature so high it requires fossil fuel power. Solar power tops the list of renewable energies in the world both in installed capacity and rate of growth. Although the use of solar panels is green many solar panel manufacturing processes are not.

The millions of solar panels being dumped in landfills are a veritable toxic cocktail of gallium arsenide tellurium silver crystalline silicon lead cadmium and other heavy metals. Solar energy is green. It would be great if all solar panel production facilities were powered by well solar power but this isn t always the case. January 31 2019 by cathy chen.

If you buy a solar panel from a company like this you can significantly reduce the carbon footprint of your panels. They follow specific standards for ensuring their products are environmentally. How green is solar. Solar panels are not.

Even though solar power is a lot greener than fossil fuels it still has a carbon footprint 9 180 grams co2 per kilowatt hour although this is much lower than fossil fuel. Fabricating the panels requires caustic chemicals such as sodium hydroxide and hydrofluoric acid and the process uses water as well as electricity the production of which emits greenhouse gases. They are also made using rare earth elements the supply of which has both capacity and political issues.