Arizona-based solar panel recycler We Recycle Solar upgraded its equipment and increased its capacity.
The company previously told E-Scrap News it recycles the aluminum frames, copper wiring and glass from solar panels. It uses a process that includes secondary chemical processing and electrolysis.
Now, it has upgraded equipment to produce cleaner glass and added work aids such as vacuum arms and lifters to allow employees to work faster but more safely, said Dwight Clark, director of compliance and recycling technology at the Yuma, Ariz. facility.
“It’s all around recovery of commodity timeframes and getting the glass reasonably clean for some reuse,” Clark said.
Historically, about 70% of the weight of a polycrystalline panel was glass, but Clark said the market is shifting toward bifacial panels, which consist of a “sandwich” of two pieces of glass. That means glass is closer to 85% of the total weight of these modules and makes glass recovery an important part of the process.
A Solar Power World story noted that with the expansion, the 75,000-square-foot Yuma facility now has the highest processing capacity in the nation, at 69 million pounds annually. The company plans to boost that capacity to 522 million pounds per year by 2028, the story added.
Recycling solar panels already? I thought their lifespan was roughly 30 years. Is this another hoax like EVs?
We Recycle was checked out by Somerset locals because the solar developers were using their numbers to establish decommissioning costs and this is what was found. Their operation consisted of a store front in AZ.
There was no warehouse and no recycling operation.
This was 3 years ago, so things may be different now, so I’ll check it out. In the meantime, a company that advertises site restoration and panel recycling, places the cost at $378,000 per MW for cleanup and recycle.
None of the solar projects in MD have adequate bonds to cover recycling and cleanup so it will fall to the locals when projects are abondoned. Because it costs so much, the sites will be brownfields.
Thank you 6:52 for exposing this fraud