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Dixmont’s select board sprang into action after plans emerged several years ago for Maine’s largest solar array, the 152-megawatt Three Corners Solar project under construction just 20 miles west of the Penobscot County town.
It was one of the plethora of solar projects that emerged from generous incentives granted by a 2019 Maine law, LD1711, geared toward meeting the state’s statutory clean energy target of 80 percent renewable energy by 2030. The law was revised in 2021 to cool demand. But cities and towns across Maine have pushed back on some of the incentives and moved to make developers more accountable for commercial projects, especially the spike in waste expected when the solar arrays are at the end of their usable life in 20 to 30 years.
Dixmont, a town of about 1,200 residents, first initiated a temporary ban on commercial solar projects for 180 days in late 2021. In March 2022 it adopted an ordinance that requires a permit applicant to provide a decommissioning plan for spent solar arrays operating too inefficiently to keep in service. The developer also must guarantee to cover the costs to remove the facility and set up an escrow account.
“We knew, because we’re fairly active in recycling in our town, that there’s only a certain length of time that these things are good for,” David Bright, first selectman for Dixmont, said. “The temptation was there for these companies to get federal grants, put these things up, operate them for a while, and then they could just walk away from them.”
The town already had other ordinances, including one for wind projects, that call for mitigation when a project is over and for the property to be restored back to the way it was before the development. There was no imminent application for a large project in the town, but the large array planned to be completed early next year in Clinton to power up to 30,000 homes each year worried Dixmont’s select board, which Bright said “wanted to make sure it got out ahead of any potential problems.”
Maine has 7,317 solar installations with a total of 948 megawatts of power, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association. By 2030, the U.S. could begin piling up millions of metric tons of waste from decommissioned solar models, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
Other Maine towns have acted similarly. Glenburn in 2022 voted to ban solar arrays larger than 15,000 square feet. Corinth issued a temporary ban in March on commercial solar developments that gave it 180 days to draft rules and regulations for future commercial projects. In August 2023 Brewer city councilors unanimously approved a similar moratorium to give them time to review and revise local rules for solar developments. Troy in early December became the latest Maine town to enact an ordinance regulating large-scale solar and wind energy projects, prompted by the proposed LS Power wind megaproject in southern Aroostook County.
The Maine Municipal Association has no figures on how many towns have enacted or may be planning similar moves. But it is not surprising that towns are using the moratorium process to slow solar developments down and figure out how to move forward, Kate Dufour, director of advocacy and communications for the association, said.
“Here’s a new industry, and sometimes it takes a few years of figuring out what is going to happen and the precautions that might have to be taken,” she said. “It’s a good process for making sure your ordinances are protecting the interests of the property taxpayers and making sure that any of the possible burdens associated with the industry don’t fall onto them.”
Dufour likened the situation to the rapid emergence of cell phone towers across communities when that technology exploded into consumer use several decades ago.
She said that while the ordinances are a first line of defense for towns and cities, potential future statewide laws might preempt local ordinances, depending on how they are written.
Bright doesn’t want to rely on the state or federal governments to come up with recycling and other plans that will satisfy the interests of his town. The Maine Legislature has been mulling what to do about solar panel recycling.
The latest action came in the form of a new law enacted in June without the signature of Gov. Janet Mills. LD 826 aims to manage the waste of a solar energy development upon decommissioning regardless of its size. Developers must pay for the recycling.
“Every panel from now on that is taken out of service needs to be recycled. And any panels that break or have to be replaced need to be recycled,” Rep. Michael Lemelin, R-Chelsea, said. He sponsored LD 826.
Lemelin said he proposed the bill because of concerns about possible contaminants in the panels. He served as chair of Chelsea’s planning board when it approved the town’s first solar farm. Shortly afterward, he heard that some solar panels might contain toxic materials and proposed the bill, saying that solar panels probably should be recycled regardless.
The new law adds to an existing law from 2021, LD 802, that requires decommissioning plans, including covering costs, to be submitted by developers — but for projects of three or more acres.
A resolve, LD 466, signed by Mills in June, seeks to propel a state look at options for recycling solar panels and wind turbine blades. Another act, LD 496, aims to clarify specifics on decommissioning for solar and battery storage systems.
There still is disagreement among experts about whether solar panels pose a health or environmental threat. Certain panels made with thin-film layered technology may contain cadmium, gallium and other metals that can leach into the soil and pose a health threat. Those tend to be used for very large panel arrays such as those that utility companies install, said Fortunat Mueller, president of South Portland-based renewable energy company ReVision Energy.
Panels installed in Maine contain crystalline silicon, glass and aluminum, with small amounts of silver and copper, but not the toxic materials in the large utility-scale panels, he said. The Bangor Daily News did not find any state data on the composition of the panels that are installed in Maine, but other experts said most panels in Maine do not have toxic materials such as cadmium.
“The panels in Maine are wasteful to put in a landfill, but not harmful,” Mueller said.
Mueller said the raw materials in the panels are valuable, so recycling makes sense. But more solar panels need to be installed before it would make sense for a recycling business to start up in Maine, which he said could happen mid-century. Right now, the panels and their components are shipped out of state.
The materials from decommissioned solar panels could be worth about $15 billion by 2050, according to Wastedive. Solar panels are made like a sandwich with silicon crystals, the most common material used as the semiconductor to convert light into electricity, located in the center. Thin strips of metal, which is usually silver, are laid in a criss-cross pattern across the silicon crystals on a glass panel. The metal moves the electricity into the copper wiring in the panel. A transparent plastic is placed on top of those elements to protect them, and then a layer of glass goes on top. The “sandwich” is surrounded by an aluminum frame.
The panels are solidly constructed and could be difficult to deconstruct, Eliza Donoghue, executive director of the Maine Renewable Energy Association, said. Donoghue said solar panels that may contain cadmium and other metals use such small levels that there are minimal to no health impacts.
“The amounts are incredibly small, and they are contained in the panels, which are very sturdy, and the elements are stable in them,” she said.
Still, the amount of waste from solar will increase, so they should be recycled, she said.
Nautilus Solar Energy, a Summit, New Jersey-based solar developer, found itself needing to dispose of hundreds of modules on two different community solar sites earlier this year, one in Wells and the other in Fryeburg. Usually only 10 or 12 panels are damaged on a project, but hundreds were damaged by rough roads and other winter conditions when they were delivered, said Sean Reany, vice president of construction at Nautilus. The company has 16 solar projects under development in Maine.
The company has decommissioning and recycling plans for the two projects, and hired Green Clean Solar, a Marietta, Georgia-based recycler, to remove the damaged panels. Reany declined to say how much Nautilus paid for the disposal.
Green Clean partners with other companies that want the materials, such as the aluminum or glass. The metal can be shredded or melted and reused. The glass, which has been wedged with silicon and wiring components, needs to be cleaned for resale. Some 80 to 90 percent of each panel can be recycled, Emile O’Leary, owner of Green Clean, said.
Solar developers pay $12 to $22 per panel to get rid of them, O’Leary said. She isn’t sure how much the recycler makes, but they are trying to figure out the best return on investment in what is still a new business for them.
Reany of Nautilus said he expects more solar recyclers to emerge as solar’s popularity keeps increasing amid the demand for states to reach renewable energy goals and projects reach the end of their life.
“More specialized companies will emerge as more and more solar projects become decommissioned in 30 years or whatever that lifetime is,” he said.
Lori Valigra is an investigative environment reporter for the BDN’s Maine Focus team. She may be reached at [email protected]. Support for this reporting is provided by the Unity Foundation and donations by BDN readers.