Solar

Ørsted to recycle solar PV modules with Solarcycle

Ørsted to recycle solar PV modules with Solarcycle
SOLARCYCLE's recycling facility in Odessa, Texas (Courtesy: SOLARCYCLE)

Ørsted said it is partnering with solar recycling startup Solarcycle to process and recycle end-of-life solar crystalling silicon (c-Si) modules from its projects across the U.S. 

Solarcycle opened its recycling facility in Odessa, Texas in 2022.  

This agreement builds on an existing recycling contract for thin-film modules signed with First Solar in 2021. Ørsted said it has already recycled 4,000 panels. 

In March, Solarcycle said it raised $30 million in a Series A round, bringing the company’s fundraising total to $37 million since launching in 2021.

Today, less than 10% of all end-of-life solar modules are currently recycled in the U.S. In 2022, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory found that for some materials, recycling can meet at least 25-30% of domestic solar manufacturing needs in the United States by 2040.

Solarcycle said its recycling technology can extract 95% of the value from solar panels. As panels arrive at the facility, Solarcycle evaluates whether they can be used secondhand on site. 

If a panel cannot be reused, Solarcycle runs the panel through its recycling process. The aluminum frame and junction box are removed, the glass is delaminated, and the remaining panel is shredded. The shredded materials go through a separate process to recover metals such as silver and copper, and separate the plastics. The company returns materials to the supply chain, including to domestic solar manufacturers.

In May, We Recycle Solar said it had expanded the capacity at its Yuma, Arizona, facility to process 7,500 modules a 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.

Recycling a solar panel ranges in cost from $20 to $30, while dumping the same panel in a landfill runs $1 to $2 or higher after factoring in logistics costs.

“We have to figure out how to lower the cost through scale, engineering, and technology,” Solarcycle CEO Suvi Sharma told the Factor This! podcast last year.

Last September, solar developer Silicon Ranch said it planned to partner with Solarcycle to process end-of-life solar modules. Silicon Ranch was Solarcycle’s first utility-scale partner, and the deal was expected to allow Solarcycle to establish a model for recycling solar materials at utility scale.

In May 2022, Solarcycle announced its launch through a partnership with Sunrun. Solarcycle said it would use panels from Sunrun to develop new ways to test, reuse and upcycle retired panels.

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