Photovoltaic Recycling
23 October 2019
Bottom line:
The emergence of Solar PV has just started and as the number of new solar installations is booming, the question of recycling and end-of-life management becomes increasingly relevant.
Today the PV recycling industry is quite small and only the E.U. has a PV-specific waste regulation in place.
PV recycling market should start gaining interest in the next 10–20 years
Going forward, PV manufacturers will either build their own recycling facilities or externalize to third-party companies the recycling process.
The former is the path followed by First Solar (FSLR US) which has set up recycling facilities in the U.S., Germany, Malaysia and Vietnam.
For the latter, main actors include big diversified utilities such as Veolia (VIE FP), electronic recycling specialists like Sims Metal Management (SGM AU) or smaller PV-specialized recycling companies like Recycle PV (not listed) in the U.S. and Reclaim PV Recycling (not listed) in Australia.
PV Panels: As Installations Grow, Waste Flies!
- Solar photovoltaic (PV) panels deployment has been growing at a fast pace over the past few years (CAGR>20% since 2010), reaching a total capacity of more than 400GW at the end of 2018 and expected to reach 4’500GW by 2050.
- Along with fast PV deployment comes the question of end-of-life treatment & recycling.
- PV panels have an average theoretical lifetime of 30 years and waste will build up as panels start to reach their end-of-life and/or undergo early failure
- First panels were installed in the early 90's, and while the massive deployment is still ahead of us, many of the first generation panels are now starting to be decommissioned.
- Estimates about global cumulative PV waste range between 43’500 and 250’000 tonnes in 2016 and are forecast to reach 7–8mn tonnes by 2030 and 60–78mn tonnes by 2050.
- The potential of this new market opportunity will depend on the development of efficient recycling technologies as well as the establishment of favorable regulatory frameworks.
- Global PV panel waste forecast (2016–2050) is based on two scenarios:
- Regular-loss: assumes lifetime of solar panels is 30 years
- Early-loss: takes into account “infant”, “mid-life” and “wear-out” failures of panels before the 30 years lifespan
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PV Waste Management: What Are The Options?
- Today’s PV panels are mainly based on Crystalline Silicon (90%) and Thin Film (9%) technologies.
- Crystalline Silicon (c-Si) panels are typically composed of glass (76%), polymer (10%), aluminum (8%), silicon (5%), copper (1%), and silver + other metals (<0.1%).
- Thin-film panels are either Copper indium gallium (di)selenide (CIGS) or Cadmium telluride (CdTe) based.
- Over 98% of these panels are composed of non-hazardous materials including glass, polymer and aluminum, but also contain potentially hazardous (copper, zinc) and hazardous materials (indium, gallium, selenium, cadmium, tellurium and lead.).
- Within the entire lifecycle of PV panels, waste management can be optimized by leveraging opportunities in reducing, reusing, and recycling certain components. Each option should be considered at different stages.
- Reduce: Current R&D activity strives to reduce the usage of hazardous and rare material in panel productions enhancing the recyclability and resource recovery potential of panels.
- Reuse: Panels which suffered from early failures (coating degradation, discoloration, glass breakage, loose frames, contact failures, etc.) before the end of their 30 years lifetime can sometimes be repaired and resold on a secondary market.
- Recycle: Once PV installations reach the final decommissioning stage, panels should be sent to recycling plants in order to recover as much components as possible.
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Recycling: How and How Much?
- Current PV waste quantities are too low to justify a dedicated PV panel recycling plants meaning that old panels are currently processed into existing recycling plants and typically go through a purely mechanical separation.
- The recovery rates of major components such as glass, aluminum, and copper is already above 85%.
- Developing dedicated recycling plants for Silicon and Thin-film based panels incorporating more advanced processes can enable the recovery of scarcer valuable components as well as limit impurities in the recovered materials.
- By 2030, the cumulative value of recycled PV panel material should reach $450mn, representing enough recovered material to produce 60mn new panels (or 18GW).
- According to IRENA (The International Renewable Energy Agency), based on current PV panels deployment forecasts the cumulative value of recycled material could reach $15bn by 2050, with enough recovered material to produce 2bn panels (630GW).
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Early Movers
- Given today’s small amount of PV panels reaching their end-of-life, the market of PV recycling is still relatively small and only a few actors have initiated voluntary actions for managing PV waste streams.
- As an exemple, First Solar (FSLR US) has built its own recycling facility which recycle its Thin-film PV panels
- It recovers more than 90% of the semiconductor material and 90% of glass with a daily recycling capacity of 150 tonnes.
- The only existing jurisdiction addressing end-of-life management of PV panels is the E.U. Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive where producers selling panels in the E.U. market are legally responsible for their end-of-life management (including costs of collection, treatment, etc.).
- Since its inception in 2002, the WEEE Directive has gone through several revisions to improve its annual collection and recycling targets, and we expect future WEEE revisions to further increase recovery rates and quality standards as new recycling techniques become available.
- In order to comply with the WEEE regulation, most panel producers joined PV Cycle; a European association, fully financed by its members, for voluntary take back and recycling of PV modules.
- The association has set up hundreds of collection points around Europe so that end-users can return old panels, and has partnered with several national waste recycling facilities.
- While there is no yet any specific PV regulations in big PV markets such as China or U.S., these countries will likely follow the E.U. example and start adopting recycling policies as the stock of end-of-life panels grows.
Catalysts:
- Increasing waste volumes: Thanks to a fast-growing Solar PV industry, the amount of PV waste will rapidly reach a point where it becomes economically interesting to develop PV recycling facilities.
- New regulations & government incentives: National climate targets is likely to foster the development of PV recycling regulatory frameworks as a way to improve country’s environmental footprint.
- Pressure on companies: Investors are putting pressure on PV manufacturing companies to always improve their environmental impact which incite them to adopt waste management strategies.
Risks:
- Expensive recycling process: Advanced tailor-made PV recycling processes can turn out to be quite expensive, and the price delta with raw material extraction may hamper the business case.
- Poor quality of recovered material: Depending on the recycling method, the quality of the recovered material can vary. High impurity levels could negatively impact resale prices.
- Evolution of PV technology: Next generation PV cells, using other materials (such as Perovskite cells, Organic cells, etc.) and implying different recycling methods could challenge the standardization of PV recycling techniques.
Sources:
IRENA, End-of-Life Management – Solar Photovoltaic Panels, (2016)
IRENA (2016), Adapted from Fthenakis (2000)
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