Photovoltaics: environmental, health and safety issues and perspectives

Abstract

The photovoltaic (PV) industry must continue its pro‐active approach to prevent accidents and environmental damage, and to sustain PV's inherent environmental, health, and safety (EHS) advantages. This paper presents an overview of EHS issues related to current and emerging PV technologies and gives examples of this pro‐active approach. We summarize the hazards related to potential accidental releases of toxic or flammable gases used in photovoltaic cell production, and strategies for reducing such risks (e.g., choosing material and process options which inherently have small risks, and preventing accident‐initiating events). Other issues discussed herein include reducing the use of toxic or carcinogenic materials in powder form, managing liquid hazardous waste, and recycling solid waste and spent modules. As the PV industry approaches these issues and mitigation strategies in a vigilant, systematic way, the risk to the industry, the workers, and the public will become minimal. An example is also discussed of environmental benefits from a large scale PV implementation, that is the potential of PV in reducing CO2 emissions. Published in 2000 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Transition metal oxide alloys as potential solar energy conversion materials

“…Another positive feature they possess is low toxicity and therefore less environmental concerns arise related to the manufacturing, use, and disposal of such devices. 10 However, TMOs have several problems. First, some of them such as the iron(II) oxide considered here, are thermodynamically unstable at room temperature in bulk form.…”

Future of renewable energy in India for sustainable development

“…To overcome energy shortage the renewable energy sources can be used. Renewable energy [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11] is a clean and sustainable source of energy derived from nature and it has potential to provide solutions to the vulnerable energy problems being faced in India. India is the only country in the world to have renewable energy development, the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy which has launched one of the world's largest programs on renewable energy.…”

Comment on Seibert, M.K.; Rees, W.E. Through the Eye of a Needle: An Eco-Heterodox Perspective on the Renewable Energy Transition. Energies 2021, 14, 4508

“…There are even meta-analyses of solar PV (and other renewable energy technologies) that have tracked reductions in environmental impacts throughout the lifetime of the industry [26,58,95,96]. In their assertion that "solar panel uses toxic substances, large quantities of energy and produces toxic byproducts [38,97]" they cited a report based on the premise that "we don't have an energy crisis, we have a consumption crisis" and a 2014 commentary alluding to actual episodes of Silicon Tetrachloride dumping in the early days of solar Silicon manufacturing in China, but without mentioning the epilogue of the commentary where the author noted the value of the environmental, health and safety (EH&S) studies by the National PV Environmental Research Center at Brookhaven National Laboratory [98][99][100][101][102][103][104][105][106][107][108][109][110][111][112][113][114] and the emerging, at the time, programs from major PV companies to prevent and control emissions in manufacturing.…”