Workers install solar panels at a farm in Sabattus in May 2023. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal, file

Maine legislators are trying to draft new rules for the disposal of end-of-life solar panels and other components, meeting resistance from some in the solar industry and clean energy advocates in the process.

The Legislature’s Environment and Natural Resources Committee pulled legislation Wednesday that would have required solar developers in Maine to recycle or dispose of components, namely aging solar panels, within 90 days of the materials’ removal. Lawmakers will take up the bill that would revise Maine’s solar energy development decommissioning laws later this month after receiving an amendment.

Rep. Michael H. Lemelin, R-Chelsea, sponsor of the bill, said he wants to bar solar companies from storing, instead of recycling, solar panels he says are dangerous.

“Solar panels should not be stored for any length of time, due to their toxic nature,” he said in introducing the bill. He did not provide examples of companies that are improperly storing panels.

An amendment he negotiated with the Department of Environmental Protection would bar storage of solar panels unless a permit is issued, he said Thursday. “I don’t want them stored at all,” he said.

David Madore, deputy commissioner at the Department of Environmental Protection, did not respond to an after-hours email seeking information about the legislation. State offices were closed Thursday due to inclement weather.

Opponents to Lemelin’s legislation say the solar industry is being singled out for recycling rules that do not apply to fossil fuel industry components such as pipelines, wires and poles, and that claims of toxic solar panels are unfounded and are slowing efforts to build solar farms. Critics also said the 90-day rule is arbitrary and inflexible.

Eliza Donoghue, executive director of the Maine Renewable Energy Association,  told lawmakers in testimony that the measure “does not rise to the level of emergency because the vast majority of solar energy development in Maine is nowhere near the end of its useful life.” The bill cites an emergency requiring legislation as “immediately necessary for the preservation of the public peace, health and safety.”

Crystalline silicon panels used in Maine and the region are 95% recyclable and contain valuable raw minerals that spur recycling because they generate revenue, she said.

“Market forces and the desire of so many in the solar industry to be responsible environmental stewards will effectuate what may be an intent of this bill — to encourage recycling,” Donoghue said.

Jack Shapiro, climate and clean energy director at the Natural Resources Council of Maine, told the Legislature’s Environment and Natural Resources Committee that many solar panels can still produce energy even after their useful lives have ended. The advocacy organization opposes the legislation.

“Second-hand solar panels producing locally made energy is preferable to either recycling or disposal, and this short and arbitrary timeline could prevent those beneficial reuses from occurring in Maine,” Shapiro said.

Lindsay Bourgoine, director of policy and government affairs at ReVision Energy, a solar developer, said in testimony that the anticipated lifespan of solar panels is 30 years and developers “suspect recycling and end of life issues would be a much more ripe and appropriate topic down the road.”

No solar panel recycling facilities operate in Maine, “which is reflective of the fact that there is a vanishingly small number of solar panels reaching the end of their lives today,” she said. The legislation, Bourgoine said, “attempts to solve a problem that doesn’t exist.”

Solar power capacity in Maine has climbed 20-fold in five years, to 4,505 projects with a capacity of 1,562 megawatts last year, from 1,058 projects with a capacity of 73 MW in 2019, according to the Governor’s Energy Office.

Rob Wood, director of the Bureau of Land Resources at the state Department of Environmental Protection, told the committee in written testimony that state law requires a decommissioning plan before construction or operation of a solar power development with ground-mounted solar panels on 3 or more acres. Such a plan must provide for grading and revegetation of disturbed areas and demonstrate a financial ability to pay for decommissioning, he said.

The Legislature has amended the definition of decommissioning to include recycling of waste components, such as solar panels, and disposal of waste components that are not recyclable, Wood said. The Department of Environmental Protection believes solid and hazardous waste laws and rules are adequate to make sure waste from solar developments is appropriately managed, he said.