L R AS Published on Monday 6 April 2020 - n° 316 - Categories:various PVs
In the end, the recycling of panels is not necessary!
Landfilling old solar panels is probably safe for humans, according to the IEA. They can be safely disposed of in landfills.
The study was carried out on the three main pollutants of panels
lead, cadmium and selenium. Under the worst conditions, none of them exceeded the screening thresholds. None of them present a sufficiently high risk.
Sending old panels to landfills is one of the disposal options. Substandard but still operational signs can be sold on secondary markets.
Panels that are broken or too old to be still functional can potentially be recycled, but in the United States at least, recycling options have traditionally been limited.
First Solar has a long-standing recycling programme that recovers up to 90% of its cadmium telluride thin-film panels. In most cases, however, the most common crystalline silicon panels are processed by scrap glass, metal or electronics recycling facilities.
In September 2019, the Brussels-based (Belgium) non-profit PV waste management programme created a partnership with the US company Recycle PV Solar "to speed up the management of waste to Recycle PV Solar launched its recycling service in 2018, by which time approximately 90% of decommissioned US solar panels were being landfilled.
The US solar association SEIA has a programme that aims to reduce the cost of recycling panels, inverters and other solar equipment by consolidating waste collection and channelling old or damaged products to a selected group of recyclers to achieve economies of scale. We Recycle Solar is based in Phoenix, Arizona.
In Europe, the recycling of panels and inverters is mandatory under the 2012 Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive. Photovoltaic panels are part of a category of electronic waste with a recovery target of 85%, 80% of which consists of reuse and recycling. »
Even with this regulatory pressure, cost-effective solar recycling remains a challenge in Europe, as it is in the United States, as most photovoltaic panels are still in use. As the panels can last up to 30 years and no panels were installed before 2000 and even before 2008. There are very few old products to be sorted, hence Europe has only one plant dedicated to PV recycling.
Over the last decade it has organised the collection and processing of over 33,000 tonnes of PV panel waste, equivalent to about half a gigawatt of solar capacity. The crystalline silicon panel recycling plant claims a 95% material recovery rate and is expected to eventually process more than 4,000 tonnes per year.
The argument for recycling solar panels is helped by the fact that old panels contain between 85 and 90 per cent glass and aluminium by weight.
GreenTech Media of 2 April
Editor's note The article is interesting because it states that the components of the panels are non-toxic and that there is no need to recycle them according to a serious American organisation.
It points out that recycling is not profitable because of its low volume and that recycling will only increase from 2025 or even 2030. So PV Cycle is being kept alive without any need for it. It is true that with the different standards and constraints, costs are increasing in Europe. Secondly, we are surprised at the lack of competitiveness compared to the Chinese or Americans.
The recycling rate reaches, in principle, 95%, whereas the new Italian process reaches 99% (New method for recycling panels)
