Ever heard of a recycling plant for solar panels.Europe has established a one-of-a-kind recycling plants for solar panels. It’s an exciting start. Let’s hope that we see many of these all across the world.
Let’s take you through the recycling process. The materials used in the construction of solar panels such as glass, aluminium, solar cells and metals are separated and used in the manufacturing process of other solar panels. Take glass for example, once you decide to recycle the solar panel, the glass would be extracted, crushed into fragments and used in the insulation of other products.
The credit for this effort goes to the French water and waste group ‘Veolia’. Here’s what you should know about these recycling plants:
- The recycling plant would have the capacity to recycle 13,00 tons of solar panels in 2018.
- By 2022, the capacity will increase up to 4,000 tons.
- The first lot that is being recycled consists of solar panels at the brink of expiry as they’ve been used for 25 years.
- The recovery material would be about $450 Million by 2030 and $15 Billion by 2025.
- The plant would be operated by robots.
- Robots would recover glass, plastics, silicone and silver. They will crush the materials and use them to make new solar panels.
With about 40-60% of the European population shifting to solar panels, such recycling plants would be a huge step in the waste management of renewable energy resources. Here’s to a green environment!
