As a relatively new source of energy generation, photovoltaic solar’s success is often highlighted by how much new capacity comes online. For environmental reckoning, such accounting is measured against how much legacy fossil-fuel generation is retired as a result. At the same time, PV plants have been around long enough for midlife repowering and even pending decommissioning to become relevant issues.
Maintenance and retirement activities of PV facilities produce waste, particularly in the form of aged-out solar panels. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), approximately 1 GW of crystalline silicon (c-Si) PV modules will reach end of life in the U.S. in 2030, amounting to almost 5 million modules weighing 50,000 tons. By 2050, the IEA projects, about 10.8 GW of U.S. c-Si solar will be retired per year, with commensurate increases in waste. The end-of-life PV is already piling up, with about 800 MW aging out this year.
Recycling PV modules in the U.S. reportedly costs between $15 and $45 apiece, while sending them to a landfill costs between $1 and $5 apiece. Critics will point to the discrepancy and the pending stampede of old PV heading to pasture as a significant problem with the technology.
The IEA notes that the European Union’s Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) directive requires that PV manufacturers doing business in member states participate in end-of-panel life recovery and recycling programs. The owner pays the costs up front in the form of higher prices and the supplier has the responsibility for carrying out the removal and processing, with the WEEE setting a recycling target of 80%.
The U.S. has no such federal directive and the states are spotty in addressing the issue with legislation. André Pujadas, CEO of Florida-based recycler and materials recovery firm OnePlanet, told pv magazine USA that absent mandates and incentives, closing the gap between recycling and dumping requires finding value in the end-of-life PV waste.
“We’re right on the cusp of a wave of panels coming onto the recycling market, but with no real industrial-scale solution that supports the owners,” Pujadas said. “There’s a tremendous concentration solar panels as potential source material for recycling.”
OnePlanet recently announced plans to upgrade its commercial demonstration facility in Green Cove Springs, Florida, which now processes end-of-life c-Si modules. The revamped site will feature the company’s newly developed PRISM recycling line that uses all-mechanical processes with no chemical or thermal separation. In addition to silicon, the line will also separate and recover solar glass, copper, aluminum and silver in saleable batches.
The company was a awarded a $14.5 million investment tax credit under the U.S. Qualifying Advanced Energy Project (48C) program to support construction of its first industrial-scale facility. Initial production for PRISM is targeted for 2027.
Pujadas said Florida is an appropriate location for OnePlanet’s expansion given its status as the third largest installed base of grid-connected solar after California and Texas. Location is important to save on shipping costs, which in many cases could be more than the gate fee and the cost to actually recycle them.
“Florida also is becoming a state where they are bringing on a lot of PV module manufacturing capacity, such as Jinko Solar,” he said. “PV module manufacturers generate a certain amount of internal intrinsic waste, and that becomes a source for us as well.”
Not all recycling is created equal. On one end of the spectrum are aluminum cans and on the other are automobiles. Pujadas said recycling solar panels are in the middle.
“Keep in mind that the intent here was for these panels to generate power over a 25-to-30-year period,” Pujadas said. “So, they’re built very durably. It’s a hermetic seal where the environmental elements do not get into the silicon wafer. The panels are built to last.”
The first step in OnePlanet’s process is to remove the glass from the module, which takes 75% of the burden out rather than co-mingling and bulk shredding. Pujadas said his company is building on existing technology, using individual processes and principles that have been in operation in the U.S. for the last 20 to 25 years: density separators, turbo mills, grinding machines and particle size analyzers.
Pujadas describes bringing higher capacity, more effective recycling online as an important step in OnePlanet’s ultimate goal of making recovered materials a valuable part of the solar supply chain. The next phase will be to add a refining process that takes the recovered material up the value curve towards metallurgical grade silicon (MGS) and silver production. MGS production using recycled silicon from a solar panel would be a cheaper, cleaner process than MGS produced throughout the world today from mined quartzite silica. The company expects to achieve this capability by 2030, in time for the projected flood of end-of-life PV modules entering the market.
“Solar recycled silicon is one of the highest forms of silicon,” he says, referring to its intrinsic purity. “That’s the material that we are pulling out today. Using recycled silicon from panels you have an 80% reduction in energy use and a 90% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. Recycling in ushers a new era of what I would call green silicon making.”
Pujadas argues that once materials recovery firms such as OnePlanet are harnessing those valuables, the industry as a whole becomes more sustainable. In addition, the capability bolsters the domestic supply chain of critical materials, of which both c-Si and silver are classified. Enabling PV recycling to provide a source of valuable strategic materials would address the dumping problem by reducing gate fees for end-of-life panels to parity with landfill or even at zero value as demand for them rises.
Before co-founding OnePlanet, Pujadas spent his career in steel and metals recovery at Nucor Corp., PSC Metals and Severstal. He was involved in the expansion of steel production using electric-arc furnaces that use recycled scrap, a lower cost and less energy intensive process that steelmaking from ore. Pujadas says he hopes to do the same for silicon production.
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