PVpallet Offers Up A Greener Solution For Transporting Modules

The first recyclable, reusable, adjustable, and collapsible pallet system designed specifically for shipping and protecting solar PV modules is ready for testing with key clients. Full production is set for Q1 2022. This is the claim from PVpallet, a firm focused on making transportation of solar modules simpler, cheaper and more eco-friendly. Started by a group of professionals working for an EPC firm in the US, the firm is finally ready with a solution it believes meets a key industry pain point.

Replacing traditional wood shipping pallets. Especially at a time when pressure to do more on recycling is increasing everywhere.

Discussing the true cost of a wood shipping pallet, PVpallet Co-Founder and General Manager Luke Phelps emphasized the importance of understanding the “full picture” of a wood pallet’s life cycle: build costs, labor, transportation and handling fees, PV module breakage rates, and disposal costs that are the result of shipping with flimsy, unstable wood pallets.

There are also environmental costs. The life cycle of a wood pallet begins in the forest. In 2020 alone, an estimated 198,000 trees were needed to build the 1,580,000 wood pallets that shipped solar PV modules. When wood pallets become unusable, often after a single use, they are typically thrown away. As a result, the solar industry contributed to an estimated 60 million pounds of wood waste to US landfills in 2020 alone. That number will only increase as the solar industry continues to see double digit growth year over year.

“PVpallet aims to change that trajectory by driving real, impactful results,” explains Co-founder and Business Development leader Philip Schwarz. “We want to revolutionize the solar industry and initiate an industry-wide shift in thinking—from a linear to a circular economy.”

PVpallets are made of discarded, recycled plastic. They are sturdy, fully collapsible, adjust to accommodate 80 – 90% of solar PV modules currently on the market, and stack without putting weight on the solar modules themselves. According to our projections, PVpallets will be reusable around 20 times and are virtually waste-free. At the end of their life cycle, they can be reground and recycled into new PVpallets.

It’s time to rethink solar shipping with a sustainable solution.

Of course, with wooden pallets being used across many other industries besides solar, one hopes that this innovation will have the legs to move across and make a bigger impact across sectors.