If you have been thinking about installing solar panels, you might want to consider whether or not you know all the facts. Solar panels capture the energy from sunlight and convert it into the energy that powers part or all of your home, but there are some dangers too. They are appealing because of their environmental friendliness when compared to fossil fuels.
Knowing about the potential dangers of solar panels will need to be a factor in your deliberations. This article addresses some of the risks of solar panels that you should be aware of before buying them. You should always do your research about specific manufacturers before purchasing their products.
Extreme Weather Can Present A Safety Hazard
As with all large but lightweight things, natural disasters can wreak complete havoc with solar panels. If you have set up solar panels in your backyard anywhere, extremely high wind speeds from a tornado or hurricane would easily be strong enough to rip those panels up and fling them in every possible direction.
Although this danger is not unique to solar panels, if you live in an area where you need to be able to batten down the hatches from wind speeds exceeding 120 miles per hour, solar panels are likely not a good option. Most solar panel companies guarantee their panels to last in wind speeds of up to 110 miles per hour, but not beyond that.
In some cases, escaping from your house during a natural disaster can be much harder when you have solar panels. If you need to make a quick getaway during an evacuation, but the solar panels have blocked your doorway, they are not light enough to be easily moved out of the way. In strong winds, you might get trapped inside your own house.
Alternatively, if you are trying to shelter in place when solar panels are blown off your roof, if they are firmly attached through their fixtures, they might rip part of your roof off too. Then, everyone inside of the house will also be exposed to the extreme weather, and you will need to have that part of the roof replaced after the disaster has passed.
They Make Rooftop Repairs More Difficult
For people who do not have the space in their backyard or side yards for enormous solar panels, or if some other buildings or trees block their direct access to sunlight, they may choose to put their solar panels on their roofs. The roof is often seen as a convenient place because it is facing the sun and not often in the shadow of something else.
Rooftop solar panels can be convenient, but they can also be dangerous. Even if the weather is not extreme enough to dislodge the solar panels or damage them, your roof may not be so lucky. Alternatively, you might have a pipe burst in the sprinkler system, or your plumbing needs some fixing; your roof can be hard to access with solar panels mounted.
However, if anything ever goes wrong with your roof, like a leak from heavy rainfall, it is very difficult for repair people to access the parts of your roof underneath the solar panels. The large fixtures that hold the solar panels in place are purposefully difficult to remove. That difficulty is meant to help the solar panels withstand high wind speeds, but it can make repairs hard.
Self-Assembly
Many people want to save time and money by installing their own solar panels and hooking them up to their home’s electricity. However, it is easy to go wrong with the complicated wires, and the wrong hookups can lead to electrical fires or short-circuiting your entire house. You need to be careful when working with electricity.
Without the proper grounding and solid connections, you are putting your house at risk of catching on fire from loose connections and faulty wiring. Remember, solar panels are electrical generators and pose all of the same dangers as a traditionally-fueled generator.
Spontaneous Combustion
Although very unlikely, sometimes the components of a solar panel can catch on fire from the extreme amount of heat being captured from the sun and heating up the device in order to generate electricity for your home. When anything gets that hot, there is always a chance that a fire might break out in the area.
Solar Panels May Be Hazardous To The Environment
Some waste is made through a process that makes the solar cells that convert the sunlight into energy. However, the small dangers from that process pale in comparison to the dangers associated with fossil fuels and their equivalents. The production of solar cells is not the real issue with solar panels.
The main concern is for the production of those solar cells in labs and the later disposal of solar panels. At the moment, most solar panels are large and bulky. They last for around 25-30 years, which is impressive, but when they can no longer function, or if they are damaged in the event of a natural disaster, they need to be disposed of.
Right now, there is no concrete plan for disposing of solar panels. Like all large pieces of complex technology, solar panels involve multiple types of chemical substances that can get into the soil when they are disposed of in landfills. There is a growing concern that these toxic substances may further contaminate the soil around the landfills.
In another few decades, many of the solar panels being installed in the coming weeks will have reached the end of their lifespan and will need to be laid to rest. If we have not developed a comprehensive system of recycling for their components, there will be a lot of full landfills with all of those panels in their massive panels.
Lack Of Recycling Options Worsens The Danger
The toxic waste when solar panels become defunct; there is also an enormous amount of waste happening when people just throw away solar panels. There are precious metals and components used in their manufacture that do not suddenly expire or go away just because the solar panel has reached the end of its lifecycle.
Most solar panels use materials like silicon and silver in their production, which could easily be recycled from those solar panels at the end of their lives and either used to make new solar panels or make many other types of technology. However, there is no efficient recycling process to stop all of the dangerous waste that solar panels create.
Although some countries have begun creating laws and regulations to tackle this recycling issue, the United States is not one of them. Washington state has a law in place and is developing a recycling process, but none of the other states seem to be following in their footsteps. To fill that need, volunteer programs have begun taking up the mantle.
Because of their volunteer nature, they might not have the resources to handle the increasing number of solar panels every year. Solar panels started coming into use around 2000, which means that we will not see a significant increase in solar panel waste for another decade or two. The US will need to develop regulations at that time to handle toxic waste.
Conclusion
Although there are many concerns about the growing popularity of the solar energy market, some of these dangers are simply myths. Despite the actual issues presented, solar power continues to be vastly preferable to coal and other fossil fuels that pollute the atmosphere and are infinitely more dangerous to the planet and all life on it.
Sources
https://education.seattlepi.com/dangers-solar-panels-6127.html
https://www.wired.com/story/solar-panels-are-starting-to-die-leaving-behind-toxic-trash/