Is it mostly early inefficient panels that are now obsolete?
Natural gas: a megawatt- hour of electricity costs about $20. .. wind or solar electricity costs about $80 a megawatt-hour.. batteries are very costly for moving electricity.. $270 per megawatt-hour..
$270 includes the cost of replacing the battery every five years. The batteries have to be air-conditioned and .. further comments thru the thread.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3772445/posts
Every brand I have tried the past 10 years or so have had a lifespan of about 2 years. Consumer level panels are junk. Even the good ones don’t last more than 5 for peak efficiency. The technology works for my situation, off grid, but just downright stupid for large scale use. What will really be fun is when the Hawaiian panels start hitting the waste stream. Hawaii went all in and many suckers believed the hype.
Yes and no. Yes, the ones from 20 years ago (that are being thrown away today) are obsolete by today's standards. But the new ones have the same problem of being toxic and too expensive to recycle. Ostensibly the newer ones are made to be easier to recycle, and there are a few companies getting wasteful grant money to research the problem of recycling them. But I'll believe it when I see it.
I say that as someone with many solar panels and I like them.