Solar Panel Recycling

March 21-22, 2024 | Online :: Central Time

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With a focus on sustainability and environmental consciousness, this event brings together experts, enthusiasts, and industry professionals to explore the entire lifecycle of solar panels. Attendees will gain insights into the environmental impact of solar waste, explore the circular supply chain, review solar panel recycling technologies, and learn best practices for recycling, refurbishing, and upcycling. Additionally, legal and regulatory considerations, which are crucial in the field of solar recycling, will be illustrated to ensure that attendees stay informed and compliant with standards and requirements.

Join us to become a catalyst for sustainable change and innovation in solar technology.

Learning Outcomes

Attendees will:

• Explore the environmental impact of solar panel waste and the importance of responsible recycling and reuse practices
• Recognize regulatory considerations for the reuse and recyling of PV modules
• Discover how to repurpose and upcycle old solar panels for creative and practical applications
• Identify best practices for handling, transporting and storing solar panels for recycling and reuse
• Recognize safety precautions for and measures associated with handling solar panels during recycling and reuse processes
• Explore solar module recycling in the context of utility-scale solar installations
• Discuss challenges and solutions for creating a sustainable solar panel circular economy

Thursday, March 21, 2024 : Central Time

9:00 – 9:15 a.m. :: Overview and Instructions

9:15 – 9:45 a.m. :: Overview of Solar Panel End of Life Recycling Solutions

This presentation will give a brief overview of key areas in solar recycling such as:

• Challenges and solutions for creating a sustainable solar panel circular economy
• What is the growing problem, and what’s at the heart of the issue?
• Moving from landfilling to recycling and reuse
• The recycling process
• Costs and challenges
• Navigating the recycling process
• The future of recycling
• The benefits of choosing recycling

Dr. Janette Freeman, Director of Business Development, Fabtech Solar Solutions

Adam Saghei, CEO, We Recycle Solar

9:45 – 10:30 a.m. :: It’s Decommissioned, Now What? Solutions for Removed Solar PV Material

Planning for decommissioning is as much about removing the solar material from the roof as it is choosing the optimal solution for your solar assets next steps. Between recycling, reusing for repowering, or donating locally and beyond, the available options for decommissioned solar material will change based on numerous project details. This presentation will provide data driven descriptions of the numerous possible solutions available to optimize environmental and economic returns on solar investment, as well as highlight the unique approaches needed for various material types.   

Saxon Metzger, MBA, PMP, Graduate Professor of Sustainable Business, Eighth Generation Consulting, LLC

10:30 – 11:00 a.m. :: Morning Break

11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. :: Sustainable Practices: Ensuring Safety in Solar Panel Recycling Operations

Building a culture of safety in any plant is crucial to the overall health and safety for the team. As the solar recycling industry takes shape, more and more people will enter the marketplace without the expertise required to build, operate, and maintain the safety of not only their staff, but for all stakeholders working in the organization. This session will identify and outline the keys to operational safety through sustainable practices and cover the following topics:

• Introduction to solar recycling operations and safety
• Operationalizing safety: integrating international safety standards
• Environmental impact mitigation through safety measures
• Efficient facility operations for safety and compliance
• Safety culture: building resilience in teams
• Safety insights and implementation

Tom Hobbs, COO, Solar Recycling

12:00 – 12:30 p.m. :: Sustainable Energy: The Crucial Shift Toward Standardized Solar Project Planning

The solar industry is reaching a valuable inflection point in its development. The time has come to standardize large scale solar project planning across municipalities and communities. Through this process of standardization, full life cycle solar planning will create consistency in project adoption approval and reduce the friction of the permitting process. This presentation touches on the key aspects of consideration to start the conversation about standardization in municipal solar planning.

• Introduction to commercial solar planning projects
• Assessing feasibility for commercial solar projects
• Regulatory and permitting considerations
• Standardizing to simplify

Tom Hobbs, COO, Solar Recycling

12:30 – 1:30 p.m. :: Lunch Break

1:30 – 2:30 p.m. :: Solar Module Recycling at Utility Scale

The rapid growth of solar energy installations has resulted in an increased demand for efficient and sustainable solutions for solar module recycling. As the utility-scale solar industry expands, the need for a well-designed and effective recycling system becomes paramount to minimize environmental impact and maximize resource recovery. This presentation will aim to provide an overview of a comprehensive solar module recycling system specifically tailored for utility-scale applications, including the following topics:

• Environmental challenges associated with end-of-life management of solar modules including the accumulation of electronic waste and the potential release of hazardous materials.
• Importance of implementing a circular economy approach to ensure the responsible and sustainable disposal of decommissioned solar modules
• Key components of an efficient utility-scale solar module recycling system such as:
  • Collection and transportation logistics
  • Sorting and dismantling processes
  • Utilization of advanced technologies for material recovery
• Strategies for handling and treating hazardous substances found in solar modules such as lead and cadmium
• Economic aspects of solar module recycling at a utility scale
• Potential revenue streams and cost savings that can be derived from recycling valuable materials
• Establishing partnerships and collaborations among stakeholders
• Potential future developments and challenges in the field

Dwight Clark, Director of Compliance, We Recycle Solar

2:30 – 3:00 p.m. :: Round Table Discussion

 

Friday, March 22, 2024 : Central Time

9:00 – 9:30 a.m. :: Reusing and Refurbishing Solar Panels

This session will cover key areas of solar panel reuse and refurbishment such as:

• Reaching end of life status before being decades old
• How solar panels are qualified for reuse
• Value of used solar panels
• Exploring end-of-life panels that can be reused vs. recycled
• Donation options
• Users and buyers of used solar panels
• Advantages of used solar panels
• Off-grid vs. on-grid
• Expanding strategic markets
• Testing and warranties
• What companies can do today, even if they aren’t currently dealing with used solar panels, to join in the commitment to reuse and recycle

Dr. Janette Freeman, Director of Business Development, Fabtech Solar Solutions

9:30 – 10:30 a.m. :: Case Study: Can We Use End-of-Life Photovoltaic Panels as a Building Material?

Exploring strategies for end-of-life (EoL) PV panel management is imperative as the number of PV installations continue to rise. Given that crystalline silicon PV panels carry the largest and the earliest share of installations worldwide, the volumes of decommissioned panels are expected to be high and globally dispersed. Further, given the inherent physical durability of the constituent materials, their as-is upcycling/use could be an ideal end-of-life management strategy. This presentation will include examination of a hitherto unattempted strategy to upcycle EoL PV panels as a building material. The proposed adoption could also alleviate demand for conventional, embodied energy-intensive building materials and provide a low-cost alternative, accessible for housing applications globally. Integration as a building material involved challenges in terms of thermal performance and occupant comfort. This compels an examination of the EoL PV panel for its optical, thermal properties and its climate responsiveness. The results from these examinations are discussed in this presentation.

Roshan Rao, Research Associate, Indian Institute of Science

10:30 – 10:45 a.m. :: Morning Break

10:45 – 11:30 a.m. :: Case Study: Evaluating a Resin-Based Approach to Solar Panel Refurbishment

As of 2022, more than 3.3 million households in the United States have installed solar panels. Recycling solar panels is challenging with approximately 90% of end-of-life or defective solar panels ending up in landfills. As such, a student-led team at Cornell is experimenting on a data set of 1200 damaged PV panels to design, implement, and test refurbishing approaches. This presentation will walk through the four phases of the Solar Panel Reboot study at Cornell University:

• Correlating physical damages (i.e., number of glass fractures, dents) of PV panels to their performance
• Testing different refurbishing approaches (e.g., epoxy coating and lamination) over long-term performance (4 to 6 months)
• Investigating real-world performance of refurbished panels via local, community distribution
• Assessing the life cycle analysis and the levelized cost of the chosen refurbishing method with new panels

Michelle Yang, Co-Team Lead, Solar Panel Reboot, Cornell University

Jack Kalinski, Member, Solar Panel Reboot, Cornell University

11:30 – 12:15 p.m. :: Case Study: Maximizing Recovery and Utilization of Contained-Values in End-of-Life Solar Modules

Researchers at the University of Kentucky, in collaboration with American Solar Recycling Co. are implementing a sustainable alternative to landfilling by physically separating and selectively recovering contained values. By combining the benefits of physical and chemical processing, this sustainable waste management practice achieves circular benefits by diverting metals, glass, and plastics from waste streams to marketable products. Achieving selective recovery of all components enables not just the recovery of commodity-grade components, but the opportunity to refine materials for higher value markets, offsetting costs and reducing the need for subsidy.

This presentation will include a discussion of the contained value in mono and crystalline solar PV modules, value-added applications for recycled components and the processing steps necessary to recover and refine them.

Dr. Jack Groppo, Professor, Department of Mining Engineering, University of Kentucky/American Solar Recycling Co

Dwight Clark, Director of Compliance, We Recycle Solar

Dr. Janette Freeman, Director of Business Development, Fabtech Solar Solutions

Dr. Jack Groppo, Professor, Department of Mining Engineering, University of Kentucky/American Solar Recycling Co.

Tom Hobbs, COO, Solar Recycling

Jack Kalinski, Member, Solar Panel Reboot, Cornell University

Saxon Metzger, MBA, PMP, Graduate Professor of Sustainable Business, Eighth Generation Consulting, LLC

Roshan Rao, Research Associate, Indian Institute of Science

Adam Saghei, CEO, We Recycle Solar

Michelle Yang, Co-Team Lead, Solar Panel Reboot, Cornell University

We will be using Microsoft Teams to facilitate your participation in the upcoming event. You do not need to have an existing Teams account in order to participate in the broadcast – the course will play in your browser and you will have the option of using a microphone to speak with the room and ask questions, or type any questions in via the chat window and our on-site representative will relay your question to the instructor.

• Microsoft recommends downloading and installing the Teams app if possible. You may also use the Edge browser or Chrome.
• You will receive a separate email with a unique link to a personalized landing page which will include links to join all sessions of this event.
• If you are using a microphone, please ensure that it is muted until such time as you need to ask a question.
• The remote meeting connection will be open approximately 30 minutes before the start of the course. We encourage you to connect as early as possible in case you experience any unforeseen problems.

Please Note: This event is being conducted entirely online. All attendees will connect and attend from their computer, one connection per purchase. For details please see our FAQ

If you are unable to attend at the scheduled date and time, we make recordings available to all attendees for 7 days after the event

REGISTER NOW FOR THIS EVENT:

Solar Panel Recycling

March 21-22, 2024 | Online

Your registration may be transferred to a member of your organization up to 24 hours in advance of the event. Cancellations must be received on or before February 16, 2024 in order to be refunded and will be subject to a US $195.00 processing fee per registrant. No refunds will be made after this date. Cancellations received after this date will create a credit of the tuition (less processing fee) good toward any other EUCI event. This credit will be good for six months from the cancellation date. In the event of non-attendance, all registration fees will be forfeited. In case of conference cancellation, EUCIs liability is limited to refund of the event registration fee only. For more information regarding administrative policies, such as complaints and refunds, please contact our offices at 303-770-8800

Credits

EUCI is accredited by the International Accreditors for Continuing Education and Training (IACET) and offers IACET CEUs for its learning events that comply with the ANSI/IACET Continuing Education and Training Standard. IACET is recognized internationally as a standard development organization and accrediting body that promotes quality of continuing education and training.

EUCI is authorized by IACET to offer 0.9 CEUs for this event

Requirements for Successful Completion of Program

Participants must sign in/out each day, be in attendance for the entirety of the course to be eligible for continuing education credit.

Instructional Methods

Power Point presentations and Q&A

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Upon successful completion of this event, program participants interested in receiving CPE credits will receive a certificate of completion.

Course CPE Credits: 10.5
There is no prerequisite for this Course.
Program field of study: Specialized Knowledge
Program Level: Basic
Delivery Method: Group Internet Based
Advanced Preparation: None

EUCI is registered with the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA) as a sponsor of continuing professional education on the National Registry of CPE Sponsors. State boards of accountancy have final authority on the acceptance of individual courses for CPE credit. Complaints regarding registered sponsors may be submitted to the National Registry of CPE Sponsors through its web site: www.nasbaregistry.org

 

Who Should Attend

• Solar recyclers
• Solar panel manufacturers
• Solar project developers
• Solar investors and sponsors
• Solar consultants and analysts
• Solar project environmental advisory firms
• Waste management professionals
• Sustainability managers
• Environmental organizations and advocates
• Researchers and academics