Wood or Plastic Pallets? A Life Cycle Assessment for Solar Panel Packaging
Is reusable packaging really better for the planet than single-use packaging? How can plastic be better for the environment than wood? What about the carbon emissions in the reusable packaging’s return loop?
These are all good questions—and we hear them a lot. To find the answers, we spearheaded an in-depth Life Cycle Assessment with third party research organization, Kleinfelder.
In the study, Kleinfelder compared manufacturing processes, distribution networks, and a variety of use scenarios between single-use wood pallet and reusable PVpallet solar panel shipping systems. Beginning with raw material extraction and studying processes throughout each system’s life cycle, like wood and/or plastic processing, pallet production, pallet usage, and road transport, they followed each until the pallets were either recycled (PVpallet) or landfilled (wood pallets).
The study aimed to identify stages, processes, and materials within each system that produced greater environmental impacts—and determine which system packed a heavier environmental punch overall.
Measuring data across each system’s entire life cycle was key.
“No life cycle assessment on packaging existed within the solar industry. We felt it was important to know whether reusable packaging really was more sustainable than single use packaging,” said PVpallet CEO Philip Schwarz. “People ask us all the time whether emissions caused by PVpallet’s return cycle cancel out the good it does for the planet. We hired Kleinfelder to provide our industry with real numbers.”
Let’s just say those real numbers surpassed our expectations.
Kleinfelder’s study measured environmental impact in 100-year Global Warming Potential (GWP 100). Global Warming Potential (GWP) is often used interchangeably with the term “carbon footprint” to describe a product’s sustainability.
Ultimately, the study found that the GWP 100 for a wood pallet system is almost ten times greater than for a PVpallet system when used for 20 cycles.
Additionally, the study determined that the cumulative environmental impact of using wood pallets to ship solar panels is far worse than the cumulative impact of shipping with a PVpallet solution under all modeled scenarios. Transporting residential and commercial sized solar PV modules with wood pallets in 10, 50, and 100 MW-sized projects produced much higher GWP 100 than the same size PVpallet systems for the same sized projects.
The study measured GWP 100 in kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalents (kg CO2 eq). Here are some key figures and findings:
Shipping a 50 MW project with residential sized solar PV modules on wood pallets produces a GWP 100 of approximately 327,000 kg CO2 eq.
Shipping the same size project and solar module with PVpallets used for 5 reuse cycles produces a GWP 100 of 84,000 kg CO2 eq. That number decreases with each reuse cycle: 54,000 kg CO2 eq when PVpallet used for 10 cycles and 38,000 kg CO2 eq when it is used for 20 cycles.
This study projected 20 reuse cycles for a PVpalllet system before the pallets reached the end of their useful life. However, as this study illustrates, PVpallet customers have reported reuse cycles that far exceed those projections—with the PVpallet units in circulation for over two years.
Beyond GWP 100, PVpallet scored far better than single-use wood pallets in three other categories: ecotoxicity, fossil fuel resources, and eutrophication. In other words, without industry-wide adoption of reusable packaging, increased environmental stressors and degraded fresh water quality are just two outcomes of the current boom in solar energy that will erode its benefits and positive impacts.
Businesses across the globe continually look for new ways to improve their environmental impacts, and the search for sustainable packaging will remain at the forefront of these efforts.
PVpallet was founded to help move the solar industry toward that goal by recognizing that safety hazards and product damage caused by shipping solar PV modules on traditional wood pallets are just as critical in the fight against climate change as landfill waste, emissions, and deforestation. We wanted to create a product capable of addressing deficiencies like cracking, warping, and rotting over time; worker safety hazards like splinters, sharp corners, and instability; and the need for enormous amounts of plastic wrap and cardboard that wind up in landfills after a single use.
Today, we are focused on promoting a circular economy through reusable, customizable, and fully recyclable packaging and shipping solutions. Our sturdy, adjustable, and reusable pallet system, made of post-consumer HDPE plastic, reduces the waste and cost of shipping solar PV modules, increases efficiency, and enhances safety for workers from the warehouse to the job site.
And now we have the numbers to prove it.