How Green is your Solar Energy?

Solar energy has a reputation of being clean and green.  But if you look beyond the marketing hype you will find that it is not always as “green” as it should be.

In 2011 a spill from a Jinko Solar factory in China killed hundreds of fish and pigs that had been exposed to the contaminated water. In 2015 Solar City (recently merged with Tesla) was accused of using solar modules (panels) built with cheap prison labour after rejecting a manufacturer that had higher ethical standards.

The good news is that it doesn’t have to be that way.  Some manufacturers do a good job of capturing, recycling and reducing toxic by-products.  And labour practices are better at some factories.

In response to these concerns Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (SVTC), an organization with a mandate to promote human health and environmental justice, has released a scorecard for solar photovoltaic manufactures.  The scorecard ranks companies based on sustainability and social justice benchmarks.

Vancouver Renewable Energy (VREC) has a policy of purchasing panels for our customers from manufactures that are ranked highly on the SVTC scorecard.  During the past year 92% of all the panels we purchased came from manufacturers which were in the highest category (“2015 Leaders”) on the scorecard.  This new policy has not resulted in any price increases for our customers.

Top ranked Trina modules at a recent VREC install.

As far as we know we are the first solar installer in Canada to adopt this type of purchasing policy.  In 2005 we installed the first grid-tie system in the City of Vancouver.  In 2015 we started the first co-operatively owned community solar project in BC.  This policy shows that we will continue to be a leader in the solar industry.