A French factory is pioneering recycling of solar units as experts warn of a waste mountain by 2050.
While they are being promoted around the world as a crucial weapon in reducing carbon emissions, solar panels only have a lifespan of up to 25 years."The world has installed more than one terawatt of solar capacity. Ordinary solar panels have a capacity of about 400W, so if you count both rooftops and solar farms, there could be as many as 2.5 billion solar panels.," says Dr Rong Deng, an expert in solar panel recycling at the University of New South Wales in Australia.
"It's going to be a waste mountain by 2050, unless we get recycling chains going now," says Ute Collier, deputy director of the International Renewable Energy Agency. As well as recycling the glass fronts and aluminium frames, the new factory can recover nearly all of the precious materials contained within the panels, such as silver and copper, which are typically some of the hardest materials to extract.
The glass recovered using those methods can be used to create tiles, or in sandblasting - it can also be mixed with other materials to make asphalt - but it cannot be used in applications where high-grade glass is required, such as the production of new solar panels.The world's solar energy generation capacity grew by 22% in 2021. Around 13,000 photovoltaic solar panels are fitted in the UK every month - most of them on the roofs of private houses.
"By 2030, we think we're going to have four million tonnes [of scrap] - which is still manageable - but by 2050, we could end up with more than 200 million tonnes globally."
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