In the production of solar cells the level of contamination does not exceed the permissible level for the microelectronics industry enterprises. Modern solar cells have a lifespan of 30-50 years. The use of cadmium bound in the compounds in the manufacture of certain types of cells, in order to improve the conversion efficiency, poses a difficult question of their disposal, which also did not yet have an acceptable from an environmental point of view of the decision, although these elements have a small spread and cadmium compounds in modern industry has found a worthy replacement.

In recent years actively developing manufacturing thin film solar cells, which include those containing only about 1% silicon by weight of the substrate to be coated thin films. Because of the small consumption of materials for absorbing layer is silicon, thin-film silicon solar cells are cheaper to manufacture, but so far have lower efficiency and degradation characteristics of fatal over time. In addition, the growing production of thin film solar cells on other semiconductor materials, in particular CIS and CIGS, silicon real competition. For example, in 2005 the company «Shell» decided to concentrate on producing thin-film elements, and sold the business of producing single-crystal (netonkoplenochnyh) silicon photovoltaic cells.