Although seen as a weapon to help reduce carbon emissions, solar panels only have a lifespan of 25 years, posing a major problem for waste and recycling.
A forklift dumps solar panels into a large pile. Photo: BBC/Laurent Julliand
" The world has installed more than 1 terawatt of solar power. Solar panels typically have a capacity of about 400 W, so if you count rooftops and solar farms, there could be up to 2.5 billion panels," BBC quoted Dr. Rong Deng, an expert on solar panel recycling at the University of New South Wales, on June 3.
According to the UK government , there are tens of millions of solar panels in the country. But dedicated infrastructure to remove and recycle them is lacking. Energy experts are calling for urgent action to prevent the equipment from causing a global environmental disaster.
The world’s solar power capacity grew by 22% in 2021. Around 13,000 solar panels are installed in the UK every month – mostly on residential rooftops. If current growth trends continue, the amount of solar panels that end up in landfill will be huge, according to Ute Collier, deputy director general of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA).
“By 2030, we think there will be about 4 million tons of waste, which is still manageable. But by 2050, we could have more than 200 million tons globally,” Collier said. Meanwhile, the world currently produces a total of about 400 million tons of plastic each year.
Experts are hoping for a major step forward in late June, when the world’s first factory dedicated to fully recycling solar panels opens in France. The plant, owned by solar recycling company ROSI, hopes to eventually be able to separate and reuse 99 percent of a panel’s components.
In addition to recycling glass and aluminum frames, the new plant can recover nearly every precious material in solar panels, such as silver and copper, which are often among the most difficult to extract.
British scientists are trying to develop similar technology to ROSI. Last year, a team at the University of Leicester announced that they had found a way to extract silver from solar cells using a form of salt water.
But so far, ROSI is the only company in the solar panel recycling business that has scaled up its operations to an industrial scale. Plus, the technology is expensive. In Europe, importers or manufacturers of solar panels are responsible for disposing of them when they are no longer usable. Many of these companies prefer to shred them, which is much cheaper.
Thu Thao (According to BBC )
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