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What I find revealing is that the section about the "The offshore wind project cycle" does not cover the dismantling of the installation. I had once to evaluat

What I find revealing is that the section about the "The offshore wind project cycle" does not cover the dismantling of the installation. I had once to evaluate the offer of a local project for an (onshore) solar park in Germany. The lease offered was about 4 times the current usual land lease rates for 30 to 40 years with inflation adjustments. The solar park company should be responsible for the complete dismantling of the installation afterwards. In case of an insolvency of the company a bank guarantee would step in. However, the (inflation adjusted) bank guarantee was only €10,000 per hectare (10,000 m^2), which seemed extremly low to me. This must cover everything from removing the panels and sockets, all the power lines in the ground, the transformer installation on the field, the removal of asphalt roads, etc., etc. I could not find any detailed studies about the likely dismantling costs for solar parks. Bank guarantee prices are so high that a guarantee of between €30,000 and €50,000 per hectare (depending on the current bank rate) would have eaten up the entire surplus lease. So if my guess is correct and the actual deconstruction costs are well over €10,000 per hectare, in 30 to 40 years there will be a high incentive for solar park companies to move solar parks that are to be phased out into equivalents to bad banks and threatening insolvency, so that either the land owners need to step in with their private savings after the bank guarantees where used up or the state needs to pay to prevent this from happening. Does anyone here know of any reputable calculations for the deconstruction costs of solar parks?

bombcar 4y ago
Demolition costs are easy to estimate if you can just bulldoze and landfill everything. The problem will come if you can do that today but not in 40 years.
- Archelaos 4y ago
  Even if this were legally possible in 40 years, if the field were not restored to its current state, but only bulldozed, it would lose most of its current value, which would mean a decrease of about €30,000 to €40,000 per hectare. It is good soil, without many stones and drainaged. However, according to current German and EU regulations, the solar modules must be recycled (and not just disposed of), the wires in the ground must be removed and the surface restored.
  - ClumsyPilot 4y ago
    But why not just uograde the panels? We will still need to harvest Wind/solar energy in 40 and probably in 400 years. The land, permissions and transmission are already in place.
    - Archelaos 4y ago
      This might be a possible scenario, but currently the permits are limited and there is no guarantee that they will be renewed in the exact same form. There is already a lot of resistance against the destruction of the landscape and the withdrawal of farmland from food production. Economic considerations could lead to a shift in the production of solar energy from Europe to where it can be done more efficiently. (Marocco is already very active in this respect.) Other forms of energy production could gain in importance because they provide more continuous energy: geothermal energy in the near and fusion in the distant future. Therefore, I think, it is not unlikely that not all, but perhaps a lot of solar parks might be deconstruct after their projected service life of 30 to 40 years.
      - ncmncm 4y ago
        There is absolutely no need to remove land from food production to put solar on it. The crops do better with protection from full (particularly afternoon) sun, you use less water, the panels run more efficiently, and the landowner gets two revenue streams that operate on different schedules. So, agree, dedicated solar farms might be a dead end. Geothermal is a minor player because it is quite expensive to build and operate, kind of like a nuke, albeit without the poison-a-whole-region risk. Fusion will never produce so much as one kWh of commercial power.
        Archelaos 4y ago
        Currently they put already sheep on many solar farms here in the region. I do not know how much additional revenue you get from it, but no one here would otherwise keep sheep on such good arable land. So yes, there is some potential for food production on solar farms, but it is limited. Of course, no one knows exactly where it will all go in 40 years. The hard fact is that no investor bets on further use and leases for, say, 100 years. It is the farmers leasing their land for 40 years on whom the risk is passed with an unsufficiant compensation. Personally, I think that the state should bear the costs for the complete dismantling of the installations and finance it through an upfront levy on the operation of the solar parks.
ncmncm 4y ago
Probably the assumption is that you will upgrade the panels at radically reduced prices, re-using the wiring and support. Then, the cost is for insurance against the site being no longer viable. And, probably, the cabling has high scrap value. The future of solar is in mixed use, where the land continues doing whatever it was already doing, just with added revenue on a very different schedule. This easiest on pasture, but offers most value on reservoirs and canals. In a rational market it would be impossible to get financing for single-use solar farms. Instead, ignorant investors love them, particularly when sited in the worst choice of place, deserts. (Deserts are lousy because they are hot and dusty, cutting both output and panel life, and typically far from users requiring transmission line construction. And, the land produces no other revenue, so must be secured whole.)

bombcar 4y ago

Demolition costs are easy to estimate if you can just bulldoze and landfill everything. The problem will come if you can do that today but not in 40 years.

Archelaos 4y ago
Even if this were legally possible in 40 years, if the field were not restored to its current state, but only bulldozed, it would lose most of its current value, which would mean a decrease of about €30,000 to €40,000 per hectare. It is good soil, without many stones and drainaged. However, according to current German and EU regulations, the solar modules must be recycled (and not just disposed of), the wires in the ground must be removed and the surface restored.
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago
  But why not just uograde the panels? We will still need to harvest Wind/solar energy in 40 and probably in 400 years. The land, permissions and transmission are already in place.
  - Archelaos 4y ago
    This might be a possible scenario, but currently the permits are limited and there is no guarantee that they will be renewed in the exact same form. There is already a lot of resistance against the destruction of the landscape and the withdrawal of farmland from food production. Economic considerations could lead to a shift in the production of solar energy from Europe to where it can be done more efficiently. (Marocco is already very active in this respect.) Other forms of energy production could gain in importance because they provide more continuous energy: geothermal energy in the near and fusion in the distant future. Therefore, I think, it is not unlikely that not all, but perhaps a lot of solar parks might be deconstruct after their projected service life of 30 to 40 years.
    - ncmncm 4y ago
      There is absolutely no need to remove land from food production to put solar on it. The crops do better with protection from full (particularly afternoon) sun, you use less water, the panels run more efficiently, and the landowner gets two revenue streams that operate on different schedules. So, agree, dedicated solar farms might be a dead end. Geothermal is a minor player because it is quite expensive to build and operate, kind of like a nuke, albeit without the poison-a-whole-region risk. Fusion will never produce so much as one kWh of commercial power.
      - Archelaos 4y ago
        Currently they put already sheep on many solar farms here in the region. I do not know how much additional revenue you get from it, but no one here would otherwise keep sheep on such good arable land. So yes, there is some potential for food production on solar farms, but it is limited. Of course, no one knows exactly where it will all go in 40 years. The hard fact is that no investor bets on further use and leases for, say, 100 years. It is the farmers leasing their land for 40 years on whom the risk is passed with an unsufficiant compensation. Personally, I think that the state should bear the costs for the complete dismantling of the installations and finance it through an upfront levy on the operation of the solar parks.

ncmncm 4y ago

Probably the assumption is that you will upgrade the panels at radically reduced prices, re-using the wiring and support. Then, the cost is for insurance against the site being no longer viable. And, probably, the cabling has high scrap value. The future of solar is in mixed use, where the land continues doing whatever it was already doing, just with added revenue on a very different schedule. This easiest on pasture, but offers most value on reservoirs and canals. In a rational market it would be impossible to get financing for single-use solar farms. Instead, ignorant investors love them, particularly when sited in the worst choice of place, deserts. (Deserts are lousy because they are hot and dusty, cutting both output and panel life, and typically far from users requiring transmission line construction. And, the land produces no other revenue, so must be secured whole.)