Michael J. Daley

With the expansion of its Yuma, Arizona processing facility, We Recycle Solar (WRS) is doing its part to help stave off a major rise of solar panel waste headed for landfilling or incineration as the first generation of large-scale solar projects face decommissioning.

According to the International Renewable Energy Agency, the world could be saddled with 78 million tons of solar panel waste by 2050.

In a September 15, 2021 website post, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) cited a study that projects “From 2020 to 2050 in the modeled baseline conditions, approximately 80% of modules are landfilled (emphasis added), 1% are reused, and 10% are recycled.”

This is not exactly the destiny or image most renewable energy advocates envisioned for our beloved green technology.

Julien Walzberg, lead author in the NREL study and of a new article titled “Role of Social Factors in Success of Solar Photovoltaic Reuse and Recycle Programs” in Nature Energy, makes this observation. “With today’s technology, PV (photovoltaic) modules are difficult to separate, and the process recovers mostly low-value materials. Because of this, there currently isn’t enough revenue from recycling to offset the high costs, and therefore very little mass is recycled. Our model shows this could lead to a major waste problem by 2050.”

Except for countries in the European Union (EU), no country in the world has passed laws on solar waste recycling, a March 9, 2020 article in edobusiness.com by Tim Ha noted. In an extensive discussion with Vivek Chaturvedi, regional business director for solar in India, the Middle East and Africa at Royal DSM, a Dutch multinational that deals in health, nutrition and sustainable living, Chaturvedi said, “In the absence of clear regulations, there is much ambiguity around where responsibilities for recycling should lie.”

WRS has not waited for government directives to undertake the task of keeping solar panel waste out of the trash. Founded in August 2019 by a team of infrastructure and environmental entrepreneurs, WRS has recycled or remarketed more than 500,000 end-of-life solar panels to date, diverting 23 million pounds of hazardous solar panel waste from landfills. They specialize in the highly-technical task of solar panel removal, decommissioning, recycling, and processing for reuse and is the nation’s only solar recycler fully permitted by the federal EPA to handle hazardous secondary materials generated by solar panels.

With the addition of new lines of machinery and enhanced technology, WRS’s utility scale, 75,000 sq. ft. recycling plant boasts the highest processing capacity in the nation, with the ability to process panels of every make and model, from any manufacturer, including those that are severely damaged, at a rate of up to ten panels per minute.

In a single day, WRS processes 7,500 modules, or 345,000 pounds, for recycling and reuse, and 69 million pounds in a single year, with plans to quadruple capacity to 522 million pounds by 2028.

WRS CEO Adam Saghei said, “We’ve not only increased processing speed and volume capacity enough to tackle roughly 25% of the current national need for recycling – we’ve also expanded our specialized solar handling teams, resulting in a breakage reduction of up to 30% at the time of decommissioning, which significantly increases the amount of PV panels we’re able to repurpose for the resale market.”

That ability to repurpose used modules is a critical part of waste management and points out the glaring inadequacy in current trends where NREL identified only 1% of panels being reused.

It is important to emphasize that except when damaged or defective, solar panels do not simply turn into pumpkins when they reach their currently warranted 30-year lifetimes. Output has faded to 80% of original capacity and while that may cause mega-projects to decommission them, the panels can continue to produce energy reliably at this reduced level for another 10 to 20 years.

“While it is possible to reuse a PV module, it doesn’t have the same power efficiency and life expectancy the second time around, so there are limitations to focusing on reuse as the main PV circular economy strategy,” Walzberg said. “Reuse and recycling strategies can be developed in concert. Understanding this interplay is important to move toward solutions that avoid landfilling while maximizing renewable energy generation.”

And while NREL is conducting or sponsoring research into ways the ensure a circular economy develops for the solar industry, including reducing the toxicity of the solar cell materials used, current models are indicating even under best scenarios, we may be moving toward a 23% reuse rate by 2050, and even less recycling!

Few would disagree with this writer that this is simply not good enough.

So, what does a mature circular economy for a product look like? We only need to turn our attention upon the lead acid battery. It came into widespread use in the 1920s with the advent of electric starters in automobiles. Battery Council International (BCI), the leading trade association representing the global battery manufacturing and recycling industry, announced in July 2023 that the U.S. lead battery industry continues its outstanding recycling rate of 99% — the highest of any consumer product in the U.S. This keeps 160 million batteries out of landfills each year. BCI notes lead batteries are designed to be recycled. Its three main components (lead, plastic, acid) are 100% recyclable.

Designed for recycling is the key according to DSM’s Chaturvedi, again speaking to ecobusiness.com: “The focus of manufacturers, rightly, has been to reduce costs and ramp up efficiency to reach grid parity with fossil fuels. Now that this has been achieved in many parts of the world, considerations around waste are going to take a front seat globally in the coming years.”

His group has already made a major contribution toward this goal by developing a back sheet for solar panels that is 100% recyclable. Just like lead acid batteries, almost all components of solar panels can technically be recycled — especially if that goal becomes a design priority.

Michael J. Daley is a life-long renewable energy educator and advocate, except for a brief time in high school when he though nuclear power was cool. He lives in a tiny off-grid cabin in Westminster, VT with his wife, Jessie Haas, powered by one repurposed solar panel.

Links

We Recycle Solar – B2B Solar Panel Recycling Services (https://werecyclesolar.com/)

To Toss, Repair, or Recycle? ()

Take a look inside North America’s largest solar panel recycling plant (https://bit.ly/NAsLargestSolarRecycling)