French water and waste group Veolia has opened Europe's first recycling plant for solar panels and is set to recycle 1,300 tonnes in 2018 alone.
The new plant located in Rousset, southern France, has a contract with solar industry recycling organisation PV Cycle France to recycle 1,300 tonnes of solar panels this year. This number equates to all solar panels that will reach their end of life in France this year and is set to ramp up to 4,000 tonnes by 2022.
"This is the first dedicated solar panel recycling plant in Europe, possibly in the world," Gilles Carsuzaa, head of electronics recycling at Veolia, told reporters.
The first ageing photovoltaic (PV) panels, with lifespans of around 25 years, are now beginning to come off rooftops and solar plants in volumes sufficiently steady and significant to warrant building a dedicated plant, Veolia said.
Before the opening of the recycling plant, ageing or broken solar panels have typically been recycled in general-purpose glass recycling facilities, where only their glass and aluminium frames are recovered and their speciality glass is mixed in with other glass. The remainder is often burned in cement ovens.