Today’s newsletter looks at the market for secondhand solar panels. Buyers are touting their low price and the environmental benefits of keeping them in rotation longer. You can read the full version of the story on Bloomberg.com. For unlimited access to climate and energy news, please subscribe. 

The demand for pre-loved panels

By Shoko Oda

Todd Dabney, who’s been going to the Burning Man festival since 2011, needed a way to keep his tent cool under the baking Nevada sun. So the IT consultant created what he calls “the ultimate swamp cooler” out of a heavy-duty plastic storage container, pumps, tubes and a fan.

Powering the device is a 385-watt JinkoSolar panel that he snapped up on Craigslist several years ago from a nearby seller for $100. Dabney recalls that the seller was upgrading his solar array and getting rid of his current panels, which were about five years old. 

“There was no reason to buy new panels” for the cooler, he says. “I knew I was taking this to Burning Man, and it’s going to get dusty and beaten up.”

Todd Dabney’s DIY solar-powered evaporative cooler, left and middle, undergoes testing in 2019. Dabney, right, helps disassemble a geodesic dome at Burning Man in Black Rock City, Nevada, in 2023. From left: Courtesy: Todd Dabney; Courtesy: Stuart Sharpe

As factories turn out more and more new panels, the supply of used ones increases in turn. Dabney is among a group of solar shoppers in the US who opt to buy them secondhand, often through listings on eBay, Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace. On message boards like Reddit’s r/solar and the DIY Solar Power Forum, thrifters can share their experiences and swap installation tips. 

Pre-owned panels are an attractive option for the frugal, as well as DIY enthusiasts, tinkerers and homesteaders. Their cost varies with age and output. Older panels, which usually have lower wattage, can be found online for under $50. Newer ones tend to have higher wattage and can cost several times as much. But any secondhand panel from the next town over will be tariff-free, whereas the majority of new panels installed in the US are imported, so subject to a levy. 

Read more: US Solar’s Hoarding Habit Will Help Blunt Sting From Trump Tariffs

Giving the modules a second life has environmental benefits, experts say, and as more solar is installed globally, the niche used market could grow. 

Arizona-based SanTan Solar sells both new and used panels through its website and eBay. Its parent company, Fabtech Solar Solutions, runs a solar recycling business that takes panels from decommissioned projects and tests them for quality. SanTan sells the used modules with a one-year warranty. 

Rusty Thatcher, a sales manager at SanTan Solar, shows panels for sale on the company’s website and on eBay. Thatcher describes the buyers of used panels as “energy independent” and “budget conscious.” Photographer: Caitlin O’Hara for Bloomberg Green

Interest in pre-owned panels spiked during the Covid-19 pandemic, when Americans were spending more time at home, according to SanTan sales manager Rusty Thatcher. “The primary end-users are people that are more energy independent, that are really more budget conscious — they’re really looking for a cheap alternative to other energy sources,” Thatcher says. They might want to set up a solar system for their RV or need to replace part of an existing array, he adds. 

Going used also avoids sending working panels into the waste stream prematurely. The International Renewable Energy Agency estimates that the cumulative waste from photovoltaics will reach 4 million tons globally in 2030, and almost 50 million tons in 2040. 

Read more: The Quest to Make Clean Energy Even Cleaner

Panels typically have a warranty of 30 years, but many don’t reach their full lifespan before being replaced. Their manufacturing results in the same environmental impacts whether they’re in use for three years or three decades. 

“Once you’ve manufactured a PV panel, extending its lifetime through reuse amortizes the sunk, or embodied, environmental impacts over more electricity generation, reducing the per kilowatt-hour impacts,” says Garvin Heath, principal environmental engineer at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and an expert on lifecycle assessment of energy technologies. 

What are the drawbacks of buying used? Continue reading here. This story is part of Bloomberg Green’s spring cleaner tech package exploring the money, politics and people shaping the energy transition. Check out our other coverage:

• Big Bets on Speculative Carbon Capture Tech Ignore Today’s Solutions
• Trump Throws the Electric School Bus Transition Into Chaos
• Why Homeowners Choose Heat Batteries Over Heat Pumps

This week we learned

1. Shipping lines are trialing onboard carbon capture and storage. One startup says it wants to turn carbon dioxide from smokestack emissions into a bicarbonate, a common marine salt, that is disposed of at sea as the ship traverses the ocean.
2. Data centers are expected to represent 8.6% of electricity demand by 2035. This is up from just 3.5% today, according to a new BloombergNEF report. The increase of power-hungry data centers will blunt the drop of energy-related emissions this decade.
3. The EPA’s Clean School Bus Program has been very popular. When the agency opened its first round of applications for $500 million in 2022, school districts  requested nearly $4 billion for over 12,000 buses. The Trump administration, however, has put the future of the program into question. 
4. Futuristic carbon cleanup solutions are sucking up all the funding. Firms are placing major bets on direct air capture even though the technology remains unproven at scale, inordinately expensive and energy intensive. Far less investor money is flowing to competing methods such as sequestering CO2 in the ocean.
5. It’s quicker to drive around some areas of New York City. Commuting times are down on some of the busiest routes since the city introduced a policy on Jan. 5 charging cars up to $9 a day to enter certain parts of Manhattan.

Artificial intelligence’s power-hungry nature has earned it a reputation as a climate pariah. Training a single model can use more electricity than 100 US homes in an entire year. While concerns about AI are well-earned, the technology also has a role to play in fighting climate change. Finding methods to cut carbon emissions often requires analyzing vast datasets and identifying new patterns — something computers do better and faster than humans. Algorithms can also help communities better prepare for climate-induced risks, for instance, by combing through troves of images captured by cameras in fire-prone areas to spot wildfire outbreaks before they become obvious to the human eye. Read more on the four big ways companies are deploying AI as a climate solution.

Photographer: Petra Péterffy for Bloomberg Green

Developing countries require trillions of dollars a year to transition to clean energy and build climate-resilient infrastructure. So where will the money come from? Avinash Persaud, special adviser on climate risks to the president of the Inter-American Development Bank, joins Zero to make the case for giving more money to Multilateral Development Banks, which already funnel hundreds of billions of dollars a year to poorer countries around the globe, much of which goes to climate projects. His pitch is now harder than ever to make as the US slashes international climate finance and European countries reduce their overseas aid budgets to support defense spending.

Listen to the full episode and learn more about Zero here. Subscribe on Apple or Spotify to stay on top of new episodes.

Avinash Persaud Photographer: Hollie Adams/Bloomberg

• Trump Officials Weigh Earth Day Move Against Green Groups
• REI Says It Made a ‘Mistake’ by Endorsing Interior Secretary Doug Burgum
• Khosla-Backed Energy Startup Nabs $258 Million to Help Power Data Centers
• Europe’s Top Ski Resorts Shut as Record Snow Risks Avalanches
• SEC Gives Nod for First Green Stock Exchange to Begin Trading Next Year
• Trump Throws the Electric School Bus Transition Into Chaos

Zum electric school buses at a bus depot in Oakland, California. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

• Hyperdrive for expert insight into the future of cars
• Energy Daily for a daily guide to the energy and commodities markets that power the global economy
• CityLab Daily for top stories, ideas and solutions, from cities around the world
• Tech In Depth for analysis and scoops about the business of technology

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