Repairing solar panels, the “missing link” in the sector

Faced with the observation that "each year in France, tens of thousands of faulty panels are sent for recycling" even though they could still provide carbon-free electricity for years, SolReed wants to become "the first European player capable of extend" their lifespan, underlines Luc Federzoni, its co-founder.

According to the IEA, solar energy is "the most important lever" for achieving carbon neutrality in 2050. However, as the world deploys solar panels, it will also have accumulated by this time 78 million tonnes of waste from of these panels, according to a report from the International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena).

In France, end-of-life or defective panels are sent for recycling, allowing up to 95% of materials to be recovered. Repair companies already offer their services to individuals, but nothing like this exists on an industrial scale in fields of several hectares.

For two years, the company, in incubation at the CEA in Bourget-du-Lac, has been studying the relevance of an “all-in-one” panel detection and repair offer. The objective is to “go directly to the heart of the power plants” by involving mobile maintenance units, explains Matthieu Verdon, co-founder of SolReed, who has been supported by Engie since August 2021.

“Recycling is good (...) but it seemed to us that there was a link in the chain that was missing,” underlines William Arkwright, general manager of Engie Green, the solar and onshore wind branch of Engie , which presents itself as the leading operator of solar parks in France with 2 gigawatts (GW) of installed capacity, and its share of breakdowns to manage.

Each year, the group must replace 2.000 panels out of the 6 million it has installed in France.

Engie therefore entrusted SolReed with around a hundred of these defective cells this summer so that they could serve as guinea pigs to experts in the laboratory of the CEA's National Institute of Solar Energy (Ines).

The experience proved conclusive: "99% of the repaired panels have regained their original power", assured Matthieu Verdon during the recent formalization of his partnership with Engie and the CEA.

Puzzle

Sometimes a simple glance can identify a worn connector. In other cases, tests by solar simulator or by injection of electric current are necessary to locate signs of weakness.

Different components - cables, diodes, soldering - could therefore be repaired without having to scrap the panel before the end of its official life expectancy, estimated between 20 and 30 years. This could help the industry put an end to the headache of replacing panels.

For energy specialists, they must first find THE broken cell in the middle of thousands of other panels. Drone flights carrying thermal cameras make it possible to spot anomalies, but these inspections are only carried out once or twice a year. And when the faulty panel is finally located, everything is not resolved.

“Technological innovations are happening very, very quickly, so when the manufacturer sends you a new panel that no longer has the same size or the same power, in concrete terms, it’s a big problem,” says Philippe Alexandre, technical advisor at Engie Green .

Over time, the unreplaced modules end up creating “holes” here and there in the park, causing as much production loss, estimated at 6 GW in the solar parks of energy companies in Europe, according to SolReed.

Of course, custom manufacturing is possible, but it is expensive. On the contrary, SolReed calculated that reuse would allow an economic gain of 30% compared to a new panel.

Ultimately, the start-up plans to develop monitoring tools that will be able to monitor the electrical performance of each solar panel in real time and thus build a database of recurring defects. If necessary, maintenance actions could be recommended, even before the breakdown occurs.