With strong, continued growth in global solar PV deployment, international experts are looking in detail at the opportunities and challenges at the product end of life. With the concern around availability of raw materials, and under the umbrella of ‘circular economy’, significant attention has been brought to recycling PV technologies.
By 2050, estimates have projected that 78 million tonnes of raw materials will be embodied in the mass of end of life of PV modules.
‘Design for recycling’ (DfR) and the implications that this has on the future of PV development is explored in a new report “PV Module Design for Recycling Guidelines” from an International Energy Agency PV Power Systems task force.
Several Australian PV researchers have contributed to the report, including Operating Agent for this report and APVI member, Dr Jose Bilbao, who explains, “The aim is to inform the solar industry in general, and module manufacturers in particular, of potential designs and guiding principles to improve recyclability of PV modules, as existing ones are not designed with end-of-life and circularity in mind”.
The full media release is available here and the full report can be found here.