We Recycle Solar, the aptly named recycler of solar panels, has expanded the capacity at its Yuma, Arizona facility to process 7,500 modules in a single day.
With the addition of new lines of machinery and technology, We Recycle Solar said its 75,000 sq. ft. recycling plant is the largest in North America. Founded in 2019, the company has recycled or remarketed more than 500,000 end-of-life solar panels.
CEO Adam Saghei said the company increased processing speed and volume capacity to meet roughly a quarter of the current demand for solar recycling in the U.S.
“Cumulative solar waste is an enormous environmental issue facing our planet, and it could be up to fifty times bigger, and get here five years sooner than previously expected,” Saghei said.
We Recycle Solar now has the capacity to process 69 million pounds of solar modules in a single year with plans to quadruple capacity to 522 million pounds per year by 2028. We Recycle Solar claims to be able to recover up to 99% of raw commodities by weight: aluminum, copper, glass, lead, silicon, silver, and tin.
GO DEEPER: Suvi Sharm, CEO and co-founder of the solar recycling startup SOLARCYCLE, joined Episode 11 of the Factor This! podcast to break down the solar industry's recycling imperative. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
While around 70% of solar projects were built in the past five years, and solar panels have a useful life of 30 years or more, demand for solar cycling is expected to increase significantly in the coming decades. Additionally, incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act could lead asset owners to replace modules sooner in favor of newer, more efficient products.
The International Renewable Energy Agency estimates that global solar PV waste will reach 78 million tonnes in 2050. The raw materials from that waste could be worth $15 billion, the agency said.
Models from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, meanwhile, found that, should the U.S. install 500 GW of solar PV by 2050, 9.1 million metric tons of waste will be created. Based on the same models, 80% of panels from 2020 to 2050 would be landfilled, 1% reused, and 10% recycled.
