Back in 2018, one industry source said it was premature to focus on solar panel recycling in the United States, but almost five years later, significant steps are being taken to establish protocols to bring more sustainability to the solar industry. From solar panel recycling to waste cleanup on project sites to better packaging for shipments, the solar industry is greening-up its image.
Members of SEIA’s PV Recycling Working Group started making recycling checklists and discovering most popular companions in 2019, and a grassroots web site (SolarRecycle.org) has collected data on reuse, resale and recycle shops that settle for photo voltaic supplies. However the largest step ahead for the photo voltaic recycling area got here with the 2022 founding of SolarCycle, a PV-technology-based recycler that opened a processing facility in Odessa, Texas, that recovers 95% of a photo voltaic panel’s worth. Each nationwide residential installer Sunrun and utility-scale developer Silicon Ranch have inked partnerships with SolarCycle to course of end-of-life modules.
Credit score: PVpallet
“As Sunrun deploys PV programs on the scale wanted to confront the local weather disaster, we’ve embraced the accountability and alternative of managing the complete lifecycle of our {hardware},” stated Mary Powell, CEO of Sunrun, in a press release. “We’re dedicated to sustainable end-of-life processes and excited to companion with an progressive firm that shares our imaginative and prescient and is devoted to making a round provide chain for the photo voltaic business.”
Along with end-of-life forward-thinking, some innovators are engaged on methods to stop untimely photo voltaic panel scrapping resulting from supply injury. PVpallet started testing its collapsible, plastic pallet in late 2021 and located a 100% success charge with Greentech Renewables delivering panels to Palmetto Photo voltaic. The place beforehand Greentech was reporting 10 damaged modules every month, PVpallet’s vertically stacked setup prevented forklift injury and distributed weight throughout transit, resulting in no damaged panels. Extra distributors, together with BayWa r.e., have signed on to make use of PVpallets in warehouses and deliveries.
These reusable pallets additionally minimize down on wood pallet waste at venture websites, a spotlight for Green Clean Solar. Based by business veteran Emilie O’Leary in 2022, the corporate helps waste diversion by taking cardboard, shrink wrap and extra refuse related to photo voltaic product supply out of landfills and into recycling facilities. Along with trash pickup, Inexperienced Clear Photo voltaic helps with photo voltaic panel decommissioning and full photo voltaic website cleanup.
Brandon Beckwith, Inexperienced Clear Photo voltaic operation supervisor, at a utility-scale website earlier than cleanup.
“After I owned a business set up firm, I used to be visiting utility-scale websites and seen how a lot waste was accumulating from constructing a lot of these tasks,” O’Leary stated. “It was very counterintuitive constructing these large power effectivity programs to assist the world however then turning round and filling the Earth with tons of waste. It motivated me to start out Inexperienced Clear Photo voltaic. I wish to revolutionize the way in which we construct photo voltaic tasks.”
O’Leary stated her group has been overwhelmed by calls throughout Inexperienced Clear Photo voltaic’s first 12 months of enterprise, with many asking for tactics to recycle photo voltaic panels. Working as one nationwide EPC’s devoted recycler, Inexperienced Clear Photo voltaic was in a position to recycle 8,110 photo voltaic panels in 2022, and O’Leary stated extra shoppers are signing on each day.
“Nobody was taking recycling critically, as a result of nobody was requiring firms to take this on and even think about this as a part of their scope of labor. I’ve collaborated with the waste business and knowledgeable them we’d like recycling companions everywhere in the nation to assist handle and discover options to this ever-growing drawback,” she stated. “When persons are conscious and know they do have choices now, they’re keen to companion and recycle as a lot as potential.”
This story is a part of SPW’s 2023 Developments in Photo voltaic. Learn all of this 12 months’s developments right here.
