Allegations of slave labour and a tsunami of waste: The dark side of Labour's solar energy crusade

Telegraph

2 days ago

Stroll down the average residential street and you're likely to see at least one or two houses with solar panels gleaming darkly on their roofs. Some 1.5 million UK homes now have them installed, according to government data, and the number is growing.
As we move away from fossil fuels, as part of the Government's net zero initiatives, solar is likely to play a key part in the transition. Under plans to be published this autumn, almost all new homes will be fitted with solar power, unleashing what Ed Miliband has called a 'rooftop revolution'.
One that could save householders hundreds of pounds off their energy bills, we are promised.
'So many people just don't understand why this doesn't already happen,' the Energy Secretary said last month when announcing the proposed changes.
Yet uncomfortable questions hang over almost every stage of the process of switching to solar, which currently receive relatively little attention.
From the manufacture of a solar panel to the end of its operational life, ethical and – ironically – environmental considerations are often overlooked in the rush to do the right thing, some warn. Complications include everything from forced labour in the supply chain to a lack of recycling capacity, representing a dark side to solar that often goes unaddressed.
The problems begin right from the point at which the materials for the panels are made. Polysilicon, a type of silicon produced from small silicon crystals extracted from quartzite rock, is a key component. Between a third and half of the world's supply is estimated to come from the resource-rich Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) of China – where it is made using coal-based energy.
'Polysilicon [and] solar panels are not produced sustainably in the Uyghur region,' says Yalkun Uluyol, the China researcher at Human Rights Watch.
'That's why [it's] cheap and therefore creates unfair trade practice. For customers hoping to protect the environment, and aiming for a better transition [to green energy], it's coming at the cost of the environment and human rights elsewhere.'
The potentially unsustainable production behind our sustainable future isn't the only problem with the world's reliance on Xinjiang-sourced polysilicon. Reports that it is made using state-sponsored forced labour involving Xinjiang's Uyghur Muslims have also posed a dilemma for countries trying to scale up their solar energy use.
Many of the factories employing 'supposedly free' citizens in the XUAR are 'surrounded by razor-wire fences, iron gates and security cameras and are monitored by police or additional security', according to 2021 research by Sheffield Hallam University.
This applied to factories generally in the region (and therefore implicated various end products), the report suggested. But by 2020, four of the six highest-capacity polysilicon producers were companies with significant manufacturing bases in the north-western XUAR – and all 'utilise state-sponsored labour transfers, the end products of which are sold into the international solar module market', the authors of Sheffield Hallam's In Broad Daylight report wrote.
State-imposed labour transfer programmes involve 'indoctrination and other forms of human rights abuses,' Uluyol says.
The Chinese authorities have denied that such coercion is involved in obtaining polysilicon, saying they are tackling separatism and Islamist militancy in the XUAR.
Although Western governments have been aware of the situation for some time, action has been slow. In March this year, ministers in Britain rejected an amendment to a bill that would have prevented Great British Energy from spending money on solar panels where there was 'credible evidence of modern slavery' in the supply chains.
By April, following a U-turn, the Government's plans were changed, to prevent the publicly-owned clean energy company from using solar panels linked to alleged Chinese slave labour.
In the US, the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act was signed into law in 2021.
'Some countries are implementing forced labour regulations but it's not enough, as supply chains tainted with forced labour are shifting to the jurisdictions with no or weak regulation,' says Uluyol. 'The green transition should not come at the cost of crimes against humanity. And it should be green not just for the UK but for the globe.'
If legislation is slowly moving in the right direction on human rights, it still leaves a potentially enormous problem at the other end of a solar panel's life: namely, what happens when it's no longer in use.
The panels don't last forever – they last about 25 to 30 years. By the early 2030s, an estimated eight million worldwide will be reaching the end of their life, creating what has been called a tsunami of solar panel waste. Some of the earlier models are already reaching the end of their working lives now.
'Manufacturers are responsible for making sure they're recycled properly but it's very difficult,' says Jane Richardson, head of sustainability at Waste Experts, a waste management firm.
The solar panel recycling industry in Britain is extremely limited, with few places currently offering the service. The panels are classed as electronic waste, so can't legally be dumped in landfill – but this is sometimes where they end up nonetheless.
'There are some that just go to landfill as people try and save money,' says Richardson. 'Landfill is the cheapest option.'
A lot of e-waste is, alternatively, shipped abroad and 'not processed correctly,' she says. 'A lot ends up in Africa and Asia.'
Britain isn't ready to recycle the volume of solar panels it will need to in the near future, she believes, and major investment will be required to build the necessary facilities.
While others point out that the amount of solar panel waste expected in the coming years is still dwarfed by the waste generated by fossil fuel energy, that doesn't mean it isn't an issue.
'It's a problem that's going to appear [and] it's going to be huge,' says Chris Sansom, prof of concentrating solar power at the University of Derby. 'Clearly as the numbers [of solar panels reaching the end of their lives] increase, they are going to pile up and that's going to be pretty visible.'
And while most of the component materials can be reused – the glass, the metal, the silicon – the panels haven't actually been designed for easy recycling, he says. 'If you were to ask any of us scientists and engineers to redesign them for recycling, we could do that, but they're [currently] built for low cost, not recycling.'
Then there's the question of where we put our solar farms. A train journey through Britain now quite often takes you past once-green fields entirely given over to them. Quite apart from the 'nimby' arguments against them, questions remain over the carbon impact of these sites, Prof Sansom points out.
'If you've got a green field, it's absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and very often I don't think that gets considered,' he says. 'If you cover [fields] with panels, you're virtually killing off the grass and the soil underneath and stopping it from absorbing CO2.'
Pouring public money into solar farms has not always gone smoothly either. In Essex, bankrupt Thurrock Council sold off its last 53 solar farms last year, having been left with about £1.4bn of debt following a string of failed investments. Last month, the Serious Fraud Office announced it had launched an investigation into a company that sold a bond investment scheme linked to solar farms, into which the council had invested millions.
None of this amounts to a conclusive argument against solar energy per se, but it does highlight the trade-offs involved and the possible pitfalls of rushing into this evolving market.
The likelihood is that, as the solar energy industry matures, many of these issues will be resolved. Waste industry insiders are reasonably confident that recycling facilities can be scaled up to handle the tidal wave of e-waste soon to come crashing upon us..
But it is argued that we should be clear-eyed about the true cost of the new rush for solar.
'I think we fool ourselves sometimes,' says Prof Sansom. 'If you ignore that the panels have a carbon footprint when they arrive in the UK, you can… appear very green. But that's cheating because you're not considering the embedded carbon that's gone into making the panel in China in the first place.'
At the same time, you could end up convincing yourself that you shouldn't transition to renewables at all. 'You have to make the investment somewhere to decarbonise the grid or you won't get anywhere,' Sansom says. 'But you have to be careful, when you're moving things around the world, that someone is picking up the carbon footprint.'