Are You Aware of State Level Decommissioning Requirements?

For the third year in a row, solar PV installations accounted for the largest share of new electricity generation in the U.S., adding an additional 23.6 GW of capacity to reach over 121GW of installed capacity in the country (SEIA 2022). As this number continues to grow, there is an increasing number of solar material that is starting to reach their end-of-life (EOL). A deliberate and regulated plan to ensure that this material is repurposed and recycled properly is necessary to encourage a circular economy and guarantee that the sustainability strides of our industry are not erased through the destructive scraping of materials.

Fortunately, regulatory bodies are beginning to pay attention to this incoming wave of aging PV systems. On March 18 of this year, the U.S. Department of Energy released its action plan to enable the responsible handling of EOL photovoltaic materials. Through their Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO), the DOE plans to support hardware research to reduce the cost of and promote module recycling, create a database of aging systems, reach out to stakeholders, and more. Additionally, decommissioning policies and guidelines have already been growing at the state and local AHJ levels. Fifteen U.S. states have enforced statewide solar decommissioning policies enforcing everything from financial assurances (such as decommissioning bonds) to mandatory recycling. Washington state has even proposed an Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) program to start in 2025 that would seek to ensure sustainable practices by making the manufacturer financially responsible for recycling any of their products that are deployed in the state. If passed as written, this responsibility could fall on the solar developers. NREL has published a great survey of current federal and state-level decommissioning policies in the U.S., which can be found here.

There is no question that more regulations around the proper handling and disposal of end-of-life systems are going to be popping up around the U.S. to help tackle this issue. As an industry, we must all take responsibility for ensuring that sustainable end-of-life management is being thought through at the beginning of a project, as well as following through at its end. Decom Solar can help guide and educate asset owners, developers, manufacturers, and more through the options available. Learn more about Decom Solar services.