con-based PV panels and concludes that they do not pose a material risk of toxicity to public health and safety. Modern crystalline silicon PV panels, which account for over 90% of solar PV panels installed today, are, more or less, a commodity product. The overwhelming majority of panels installed in North Carolina are crystalline silicon.
How do photovoltaic panels affect the environment?
Essentially, the installation of photovoltaic panels can impact surface water, heat exchange, and energy balance, leading to spatial and temporal variations in environmental effects within the photovoltaic field (Jiang et al., 2021).
Currently installed photovoltaic panels typically convert only 15–18% of the incoming solar radiation into electricity [ 7 ]. As a result, most of the incident radiation is absorbed into the panel as heat and released into the urban environment. Little research has been conducted on the effects of PV panels on the urban climates.
The magnitude of their impact is influenced by a range of natural and human-induced factors (Zhang et al., 2023a), such as the size of the power plants, operational duration, and methods used for installing photovoltaic panels, collectively termed as 'driving factors' (see Fig. 1).
How will rooftop solar photovoltaics affect local climate?
Changes in underlying surfaces are likely to affect local climate. 25,26,27 The large-scale deployment of rooftop solar photovoltaics will alter the energy balance and turbulent exchange processes of existing rooftops, thereby affecting the urban climate.
Although very few measurements of ecological impacts, or mitigation efforts, from large-scale solar projects are published, there is a rich scientific literature for other land disturbances, such as agriculture or suburban sprawl. Farmland management practices have been found to have a large effect on ecological impacts.
Can photovoltaic support systems reduce evaporation?
For instance, Elminshawy et al. (2024) examined the impact of photovoltaic support systems with varying tilt angles on evaporation and demonstrated that photovoltaic power generation can contribute to a reduction in carbon emissions.