Although solar panels are being promoted around the world as a key weapon in reducing carbon emissions, they have a lifespan of only 25 years. Experts say billions of panels will eventually need to be disposed of and replaced.
Dr Rong Deng, a solar panel recycling expert at the University of New South Wales in Australia, said: "There are already more than 1 terawatt of solar panels installed in the world. The average solar panel has a capacity of about 400W, and there could be as many as 2.5 billion solar panels". According to the UK government, there are tens of millions of solar panels in the UK. However, there is a lack of dedicated end-of-life and recycling infrastructure.
A major step forward in PV recycling is hoped for at the end of June, when ROSI, the world's first plant dedicated to the complete recycling of solar panels, will officially open in France. ROSI, a specialist solar recycling company with facilities in the Alpine city of Grenoble, hopes to eventually extract and reuse 99% of the modules. Over 60% of the value is contained in 3% of the weight of solar panels, but they are so valuable that effectively extracting these precious materials could change their economics. In addition to recycling glass and aluminium frames, the ROSI plant can also recover almost all the valuable materials in PV panels, including for example copper, silicon and silver. These materials can then be recycled and reused to create new, more powerful solar cells.
In 2021, global solar power production increased by 22%. In many cases, solar arrays become relatively uneconomical before they reach their expected lifespan, and new, more efficient designs are introduced every so often, meaning that replacing solar panels that are only 10 or 15 years old with newer products can prove cheaper. Ms Collier said that if current growth trends continued, the number of end-of-life solar panels could be significant. "By 2030, we think there will be four million tonnes of discarded PV panels worldwide; by 2050, there could be more than 200 million tonnes of discarded PV panels worldwide."
There is therefore no doubt about the importance of choosing an environmentally friendly and recyclable solar panel brand.