But for now, solar recyclers face significant economic, technical and regulatory challenges. Part of the problem, according to NREL’s Curtis, is the lack of data on panel recycling rates, which has prompted solar farm operators to encourage more people to recycle end-of-life panels rather than discard them. impeding policy responses that could provide incentives for
Another problem is that the toxicity characterization leaching procedure (an EPA-approved method used to determine if a product or material contains hazardous elements that can leach into the environment) is flawed. is known. As a result, some solar plant owners “overmanage” their panels as hazardous without making formal hazardous waste decisions, Curtis said. I’m here. They end up paying more to dispose of them in landfills that allow hazardous waste treatment and recycling.
The International Energy Agency has assessed whether solar panels containing lead, cadmium, and selenium could affect human health if dumped into hazardous waste or urban landfills, and determined the risk to be low. Still, the agency said in its 2020 report that its findings did not constitute endorsement of landfills, saying recycling would “further reduce” environmental problems.
NREL is currently investigating alternative processes for determining whether a panel is dangerous. “It’s definitely impacting liability and cost to make recycling competitive, so we need to get a handle on that,” he said.
Despite these uncertainties, four states recently enacted legislation addressing the recycling of PV modules. California, which has the most solar installations, allows the panels to be dumped in landfills, but only after they are confirmed to be harmless by a designated laboratory, which can cost upwards of $1,500. There is a nature. As of July 2022, there was only one recycling plant in California accepting solar panels.
Washington State will enact legislation in July 2025 aimed at providing an environmentally friendly way to recycle PV panels. New Jersey officials plan to issue a report this spring to manage PV waste, and North Carolina asked state environmental officials to investigate the retirement of large-scale solar projects. instructing. (North Carolina currently classifies solar panels as hazardous waste if they contain heavy metals such as silver or, in the case of older panels, hexavalent chromium, lead, cadmium, and arsenic. must be discarded.)
In the European Union, used photovoltaic panels have been treated as electronic waste since 2012 under the EU’s Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive, known as WEEE. The directive requires all member states to comply with minimum standards, but actual e-waste recycling rates vary by country, says Rystad Energy, a research firm based in Oslo, Norway. Marius Modal Bakke, Senior Analyst, Solar Supplier Research, said. Despite this law, the EU’s PV recycling rate is no match for the US rate (about 10%), mainly due to the difficulty of extracting valuable material from the panels, Bakke said. says.
But he predicted that recycling would become more common as the number of end-of-life panels increased to the point where they presented business opportunities, providing valuable materials that recyclers could sell. The government can accelerate this transition by banning the disposal of PV panels in landfills and offering incentives such as tax breaks for anyone using solar panels, he added.
“At some point in the future, there will be enough panels to be scrapped that we will have to start recycling,” Bakke said. “Regardless of the price of the product, it is a profit in itself.”
