The Series 6 photovoltaic (PV) module, designed and manufactured by U.S.-headquartered First Solar, Inc., is the world’s first PV product to be rated in the Electronic Products Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) registry for sustainable electronics. Photo Credit: First Solar
Environment USAHow Solar Panels Get Recycled – and Then Last for 1,200 Years (Yes, 1,200!)
An American solar panel manufacturer has developed its own technology to disassemble and recycle old panels, recovering up to 90% of the material inside, thus focusing on a circular approach to the waste problem.
“Our aim for solar is to help our customers decouple their economic growth from negative environmental impacts,” says Andreas Wade, who leads global sustainability for the company First Solar . “So it is kind of a mandatory point for us to address the renewable-energy-circular-economy nexus today and not 20 years from now.”
If the semiconductor material can be recovered almost entirely from an old panel and put back into a new one in an ongoing cycle, the original material could last 1,200 years instead of 30 or 40 years. Large buyers of solar power take more and more into account the sustainability of the chain supply as it is part of a renewable energy mentality.
