Getting Aperture Science vibes from this. I can't help but imagine that everyone in the pictures died a few years later from weird and oddly specific cancers.
The trouble is that solar panels in lots of areas are vulnerable to weathering, accidents, theft and sometimes vandalism. The ones I've seen are just not very durable. I drive by a field full of them frequently and a couple times a year I see workers replacing a panel or two. I've been told they're supposed to last for a minimum of 15 years.
https://sometimes-interesting.com/electronic-waste-dump-of-t...
She got the hell out of microelectronics and is now a data scientist. The former is a dead end job in the USA and the latter pays better.