How Green Is Solar Panels

Solar panels are not.

How green is solar panels.

Solar power tops the list of renewable energies in the world both in installed capacity and rate of growth. Ai can revolutionise their design. Sunpower and solarworld are two top us based solar panel manufacturers and produce some of the greenest solar panels available to us customers. January 31 2019 by cathy chen.

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. If you buy a solar panel from a company like this you can significantly reduce the carbon footprint of your panels. Solar panels are manufactured at 2 000 c a temperature so high it requires fossil fuel power. 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.

They are also made using rare earth elements the supply of which has both capacity and political issues. To create a solar panel caustic materials will emit greenhouse gases. How green is solar. The manufacturing side of solar can be very un green since its energy intensive processes are often powered by fossil fuel based electricity.

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. 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. It would be great if all solar panel production facilities were powered by well solar power but this isn t always the case. Solar energy is green.

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. They follow specific standards for ensuring their products are environmentally.