Responsible and cost-effective dissolution of photovoltaic (PV) system hardware at the end of the performance period has emerged as an important business and environmental consideration. Alternatives include extending the performance period and existing contracts for power purchase, lease, and utility interconnect; refurbishing the plant by correcting any deficiencies; repowering the plant with new PV modules and inverters; or decommissioning the plant and removing all the hardware from the site. Often key decisions are made very early in the project development and might require decommissioning by some certain date after the end of a power purchase agreement. To “abandon in place” is not an alternative acceptable to landowners and regulators, so any financial prospectus should include costs associated with decommissioning, even if those costs are deferred by extending operations, refurbishment, or repowering. Decommissioning costs are driven by regulations regarding the handling and disposal of waste, with reuse and recycling of PV modules and other components preferred as a way to reduce both costs and environmental impact. Each alternative is discussed with order-of-magnitude costs, and recommendations are provided considering site-specific details of that situation, such as estimated costs to refurbish or repower, projected revenue from continued operations, and tax considerations. Decisions affecting alternatives at the end of the performance period for a PV plant are often limited by local regulations regarding permitting and land-use planning and state or federal regulations regarding handling and disposal of waste. Decisions regarding the final disposition of a system are often made much earlier—in the development of contracts, permits, and agreements regarding construction of the plant in the first place. Because a main driver of the PV market is concern about environmental sustainability, everyone in the PV industry—from PV module manufacturers, to project developers, to project owners and financiers, to designers and specifiers, to O&M providers—needs to ensure that liabilities such as hazardous materials are avoided and that the provisions made at the end of the performance period extract the most economic value and entail the least environmental impact as possible—or at least comply with all environmental regulations. In many cases, the site control, utility interconnection, and civil improvements such as access roads and stormwater drainage will have a high value and could justify repowering with new PV modules and inverters.
The North Caroline Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ or Department) and the Environmental Management Commission (EMC) found that solar panels are not expected to pose a significant environmental risk to the State while in operation. They also recommended that additional time was needed to further study the feasibility and advisability of establishing a statewide standard to ensure adequate financial resources are available for the decommissioning of utility-scale solar facilities, also referred to as financial assurance (FA). It was not deemed necessary at that time because the current fleet of solar facilities would not reach the end of their useful life for about 10 years. The Department recommended that a future study on FA involve stakeholders and participation from the North Carolina Utilities Commission (NCUC), address salvage values and incentives to reuse, repower, or recycle end-of-life photovoltaic modules, and describe market forces necessary to drive the recommended end-of-life management options. North Carolina is one of the nation’s leaders for the number of solar facilities supplying power to the electricity grid. North Carolina currently has about 5,100 megawatts(MW) of grid-connected solar power. This power is supplied by more than 660 facilities that are greater than 1 MW in size. These facilities are located in 79 counties, and the land is generally leased to the solar developer by the landowner. Based on the last three years of data obtained from the Energy Information Administration, an average of approximately 50 facilities are expected to be added in North Carolina per year, providing an additional 500 MW to the grid per year in total. Facilities are expected to get larger in the future, with more facilities expected to be greater than 5 MW.
As local governments develop solar regulations and landowners negotiate land leases, it is important to understand the options for decommissioning solar panel systems and restoring project sites to their original status. The New York Solar Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) provide information for local governments and landowners on the decommissioning of large-scale solar panel systems through the topics of decommissioning plans and costs and financial and non-financial mechanisms in land-lease agreements.
Community solar is an innovative new investment model that can provide Americans with the many benefits of solar energy even if they cannot site a system on their own property because they are renters, have roofs that are shaded or in disrepair, or they are not able to finance a solar installation. These barriers are particularly prevalent in less affluent areas, making community solar a promising way to improve access to renewable energy in low-income neighborhoods. This Handbook is intended to help municipalities clearly define and articulate the project’s objectives and understand the financial, legal, and policy issues they would need to address to initiate community solar investments in their communities and convey the resulting benefits to their constituents. The Handbook identifies three obstacles to success — access to capital, expertise, and risk-allocation — and includes suggestions on how to overcome these obstacles, including the potential use of public funds to reduce the project’s cost and public-private partnerships. This study also includes ideas gleaned from other community solar projects that appear particularly interesting or innovative. In addition, it offers five possible deployment models municipalities could use to support, finance, or build a community solar project in their jurisdictions. There are no simple, one-size-fits-all, models for a successful community solar project. However, a municipality can be a catalyst and hub for development of the necessary expertise, and it has opportunities to help reduce project costs and risks that can open the door for successful projects.
Community solar programs (also called “shared solar”) offer the economic and environmental benefits of solar to the 49% of Americans without traditional solar access. Such programs are experiencing rapid growth, with active projects across 26 states, up from 6 states in 2010. This market has the potential to grow more than 50-fold from the 110 megawatt (MW) capacity in early 2016 to between 5,500 MW and 11,000 MW by 2020. Previously, it was often uneconomic to develop individual solar projects of less than 2 MW in capacity (2,000 kilowatts [kW]) if they were not tied directly to or net metered with a customer site. With community solar, projects between 50kW and 2,000 kW are often viable because numerous off-site subscribers can purchase shares of a solar installation rather than hosting the installation themselves. By bringing an enormous source of new demand into the market and offering new contracting arrangements to the 51% of Americans who already have potential solar access, community solar is expected to greatly expand the market for mid-sized solar projects. One strong but sometimes overlooked source of suitable sites for community solar are those covered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) RE-Powering America’s Land Initiative. The RE-Powering Initiative provides data, tools, analysis, case studies, issue briefings, and outreach resources to encourage renewable energy development on contaminated lands, landfills, and mining sites (collectively “RE-Powering sites”). Community solar can overcome financing, contract flexibility, project size, and siting challenges that largely shut out LMI homes, apartments, and small businesses from the solar market, while offering added local economic development benefits if the community solar project itself is located in LMI areas. Because RE-Powering sites are frequently located in or near LMI areas, this paper will explore not only the general potential for developing RE-Powering sites for community solar, but also where siting adjacent to LMI areas extends their benefits. This market intersection is conceptually depicted in Figure 1. Within and outside LMI areas, this paper is intended to support sustainable re-use by characterizing the potential and pointing out the challenges and opportunities of community solar development on RE-Powering sites.
THE LATEST
Harvesting the Sun, the Agrisolar Short Film, is Available Now!March 20, 2024 - 5:52 pm
Case Study: Alaska AgrivoltaicsMarch 20, 2024 - 10:07 am
