County worksession focuses on solar industry
Sara Hummel Rajca holds up one of the solar panels at the workshop on solar energy
Photo by Samantha Lyles
By Samantha Lyles, Staff Writer, slyles@newsandpress.net
Darlington County Council convened a work session November 3 at the Hartsville Middle School Auditorium to hear presentations from businesses and educators involved in the solar energy industry. The work session was called in response to public concerns over solar energy farms locating in Darlington County.
Since early this summer, numerous residents of the Byrdtown community lodged protests at planning commission and county council meetings over a solar farm that had proposed to build on 185 acres of unused farmland leased from local landowners. Residents voiced worries over possible chemical contamination of the soil and groundwater, potential noise issues, lowered property values, and disruption of the rural landscape.
Engineer and developer John Davis of Capital Solar stressed that worries over pollution and chemical leaching are unfounded, stating that solar panels are composed of non-toxic materials secured in a durable matrix that will not erode or produce any emissions.
“I’ve been dealing with solar panels a long, long time and the only thing that’s toxic about them is if you were to eat the panel,” said Davis, noting that when panels are decommissioned and taken away, they are dismantled and recycled. Approximately 70 to 90 percent of the average solar panel unit is recyclable.
“There is no fluid element in it. It’s all solid material and nothing really can leak out,” Davis said.
Marty Kraft of manufacturer Canadian Solar noted that the lifespan of the average PV – or photovoltaic – solar panel exceeds 30 years, emits zero pollutants, and the toxic materials they contain are “de minimis” in quantity, meaning the amount is too small to merit consideration, and solar energy companies rank among the lowest nationally in terms of environmental impact.
Kraft said that while damage to solar panels from natural disasters is possible, the potential for leaching hazardous chemicals is practically non-existent. In 2015, Canadian Solar commissioned third-party leach testing of their largest solar panel, a 305 watt module measuring about 3 feet by 5 feet. The test simulated a worst-case scenario where a panel was not recycled but thrown into a landfill and crushed by a bulldozer, completely destroying the encapsulate structure.
“Chlorinated hydrocarbons, benzene, and heavy metals such as lead were all tested in the most stringent standards in the world and no chemicals known to cause human health issues were detected in the leach test,” said Kraft.
County Council member-elect Lewis Brown asked about the financial stability of the industry and cited the 2011 bankruptcy of solar startup Solyndra that left taxpayers on the hook for over $535 million in federal guarantees. Kraft said that Solyndra’s experimental solar tech was very different from industry standards, with their units using proprietary cylindrical tubes rather than crystalline silicon or thin film panels, and their failure was not reflective of general instability in the industry.
County Council member David Coker said that while many of the presenters were focused on the positives of the solar industry, he knew there must be some negatives involved, some concern over toxins. Coker asked Tommy Cleveland of the N.C. Clean Energy Technology Center at N.C. State University to address this.
Cleveland said that while there are “very small” amounts of lead in the solar panel’s solder, it is encapsulated in the panels. Cleveland said that we are exposed to lead in concentrations thousands of times higher from improperly disposed lead acid batteries and discarded shotgun shells.
“Even in the panels that have the most amount of lead, one panel has a fraction of the lead of one shotgun shell,” said Cleveland.
Cleveland said he had been involved in solar energy research for more than 12 years, and noted that North Carolina now has the second biggest solar market in the nation, behind only California.
“People have learned how to do this in a streamlined way, and now the energy that (solar farms) produce is cheaper than building new power plants,” said Cleveland.
Rich Kirkland of Kirkland Appraisals studies the impact of solar installations on adjoining residential and agricultural neighbors, and said that when solar farms are situated an adequate distance from homes and a proper landscape screen (usually copses of trees and large shrubs) is created, residential communities suffer no measurable problems from noise or aesthetic disruption, and property values and home sales are not negatively impacted. Kirkland said he has looked at over 200 sites, 170 of which are in North Carolina.
Shawn Clarke of S.C. DHEC said that solar farm developers in South Carolina are only required to get one permit – a stormwater permit – and only then if their project disturbs the soil. Solar installations like the one at the Columbia Airport that are built on asphalt are not required to get any permits at all. Clarke said that DHEC is currently permitting solar farm sites all around the state, ranging in size from 7 acres to over 500 acres.
Sara Hummel Rajca of the S.C. Solar Council said that South Carolina is seeing a growth spurt in solar energy development due to a favorable climate with plenty of sunshine, and a welcoming business climate that may foster the growth of solar component manufacturers and panel installation businesses.
“South Carolina is a great state for businesses. So if businesses that make other parts associated with solar energy come here, the job growth from being able to ship panels up and down the east coast or overseas would be awesome,” said Rajca.