Lead content in photovoltaic panels

How much lead is in a solar panel?

Each standard solar panel contains about 14 grams of lead. This means that about 4,400 tons of lead were used to make the 92 GW of solar panels installed in 2018.

Where is lead found in solar panels?

This lead is primarily found within the ribbon coating and soldering paste used to connect cells together. “Right now, most PV manufacturers use a ribbon that contains lead,” says Dong Hu of Chinese module manufacturer Longi Solar’s technical service department.

How much lead is used in PV industry?

As shown in Fig. 1, the lead consumption used in PV industry was estimated according to the annual electricity capacity, assuming that a 60-cell module contains 10 g of lead and has an average output power of 265 W. The calculated lead usage was up to 18,150 ton in 2018.

Can PV products cause lead pollution?

Given the relatively small amounts of lead used by the PV industry, and the fact that the lead is enclosed entirely within the module materials, it is unlikely that PV products by themselves would be the cause of major lead pollution, even in a worst-case scenario with a large percentage of panels ending up in landfill.

Are fixed PV panels exempt from the lead regulation?

It is worth noting that fixed PV panels are exempt from this regulation as it only applies to portable PV panels. The evaluated lead concentration is 344 ± 4 mg/kg and 22,400 ± 100 mg/kg for perovskite thin films on glass and flexible polyethylene terephthalate (PET) substrates, respectively, as shown in Fig. 2b.

Why is lead used in photovoltaics industry?

Lead has been widely used in photovoltaics industry, yielding its environmental and health issues of vital importance because of the widespread application of photovoltaics.