Canadian Solar says it recycled or recovered the materials from around 2.6MW-worth of the company’s end-of-life modules in Australia in 2022, through a partnership with South Australia based outfit Reclaim PV.
In its 2022 ESG Sustainability report, published earlier this month, the global solar giant said it was working closely with panel recycling service providers in all of its major markets, including Australia.
Through a partnership with Reclaim PV, Canadian Solar reports that 7,865 pieces of modules totaling 2.6MW were diverted from landfill through end-of-life management activities over the course of the year.
“Aluminum frames were disassembled and sold to aluminum recycling companies, and the remaining module parts were broken down using thermal deconstruction,” the report says.
“These components were then sorted and delivered to relevant materials companies for reuse or safe disposal.”
As Canadian Solar notes in the report, there are typically five layers in a crystalline silicon PV module: a front cover made of tempered glass, the electrical circuit (solar cells matrix) in between two layers (front/back), and a back cover (back sheet or tempered glass).
Aluminum metal frames are then used to improve mechanical resistance of the PV modules and facilitate installation.
The report says around 75% of a solar module’s weight is tempered glass, with another 10% comprising plastic parts, 8% aluminum, 5% silicon, and 1% other materials.
This, says Canadian solar, means around 95% of the materials used in a typical silicon solar module can be disassembled, sorted, processed, and recycled.
But this is still not happening at the rate required to get on top of the world’s growing solar waste problem.
In Australia, Reclaim PV began establishing itself as one of the nation’s first dedicated solar panel recycling or recovery companies in 2014, and kicked off operations at its inaugural plant in July of 2021 in Lonsdale.
The company, which has been setting up a second plant in Brisbane, Queensland, was aiming to recycle 70,000 panels a year at the South Australia plant alone, having been collecting and storing them over the past decade.
Reclaim has also been working to drum up government and industry support for the venture, including signing up solar industry partners to its national recovery and recycling network. Among these is Australia’s only PV module manufacturer, Tindo Solar.
Another Australian company, Solar Recovery Corp, is working with a European group, LME, to bring its end-of-life solar panel processing technology to Australia. In Europe, LME has a 12-year history in solar module management with a 99+% material recovery rate.
As SRC’s Rob Gell told the Solar Insiders Podcast in June, his company believes that recycling is not the best solution to Australia’s solar waste problem, but rather diverting end-of-life panels from landfill streams and recovering the materials.
Canadian Solar says it also works closely with solar panel management companies in the US, Europe and China. In the US, however, only 1MW of the company’s end-of-life panels were recycled in 2022 – less than half the amount in Australia.
In Europe, meanwhile, nearly 20MW-worth of used Canadian Solar panels were recycled across the continent for the year.
In China, Canadian Solar says it has joined a three-year research project focused on efficient silicon PV module recycling processes, including disassembly and cell recycling technologies.
“Longer-lasting solar modules translate into fewer replacements or recycling needs. We are dedicated to minimising environmental impact and strive to enhance incoming material quality control, implement stricter testing standards, and extend the useful life of a solar module to 40 years,” the company says.
