Solar Panels Are Becoming More Difficult To Recycle

Workers provide a solar panel for packaging during manufacturing at the SunSpark Technology Inc. fabrication facility in Riverside, California. Solar panels are becoming less and less recyclable as the necessary for recycling them looms more and more.

The United States installs 7 million pounds per day of solar panels, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, a pace that ensures an only fourth place among countries for installed capacity. Those panels are manufactured to last 30 years, which foretells a massive demand for recycling decades ahead and an increasing demand sooner, as some panels cease to damage or fall short of their warrantied performance.

Two months ago you read in this column that change is making lithium-ion batteries harder to recycle. Just as lithium-ion manufacturers have learned to cut down on costly cobalt, solar-panel manufacturers have gotten very good at ignoring their most expensive ingredient: silver.

Information About Manufacturers

"The manufacturers themselves are quite likely to reduce the silver content in their modules," stated Garvin Heath, a senior scientist with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, "because that can help to manage and lower the price for their manufactured product."

Silver proceeds making up a tiny fraction of the mass of a solar panel, but a very high fraction of its value, approximately 47 percent. We might think of that as approximately half of the incentive a recycler has to recycle a panel. Silver is meriting significantly more than other recoverable components, aluminum, copper, silicon and glass. Manufacturers have been able to lessen silver content by using inkjet and screen printing technologies to replace silver with a combination of copper, nickel, and aluminum, stated by the International Renewable Energy Agency.

"Copper is one element that’s meaning looked at as a replacement for silver," Heath stated during a webinar hosted by the Clean Energy States Alliance. "Also, just simply smarter manufacturing techniques that are more precise about just the absolute minimum amount of silver that’s needed. So it’s a dematerialization. Some of it is a substitution, but I think most of this trend is driven by dematerialization. Just using less.”

The Historical Levels Of Things Solar Related

The historical and expected levels of silver consumption in the production of silicon photovoltaic panels. (International Renewable Energy Agency)IRENA

"It’s a pretty significant reduction in silver which makes recycling more of a challenge from a value perspective because you have less and less silver to recover from those modules," Heath stated.

That increases the prospect that aging panels could end up in landfills.

"Currently the price to recycle is high, especially relative to landfilling or other options," he stated.

No extensive studies have been done on the cost of different end-of-life scenarios for solar panels, Heath stated, but anecdotally he said he believes they cost $10-$20 per module to recycle, a charge the owner would have to pay. The cost of landfill dumping is much less, but it varies from state to state, and landfilling is not an opportunity everywhere. o"In some states landfilling is illegal; in others, it is still legal. PV panels could be classified as dangerous waste in some places and not in others.”

At least one state is on top of the issue. The State of Washington's Department of Ecology is planning a regulation that would prohibit manufacturers from selling modules in Washington unless they provide a recycling opportunity.

"That's a notable significant mandate," Heath stated.

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