Qcells supercharges Georgia with solar recycling

Most people know that solar energy is good for the environment, but have you ever thought about what happens to solar panels once you take them off your roof? 

That’s where the emerging field of solar recycling comes in. Solar recycling is just what it sounds like: Most solar panels work efficiently for around 25-30 years before they need to be replaced. But what happens to the panels when you’re done with them is a fascinating process all on its own.

Solar recycling isn’t exactly a cottage industry these days. The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) projects that by 2030, the global value of recoverable end-of-life solar panels will reach $450 million, or roughly equal to what it would cost to produce 60 million new panels. And the global solar panel recycling market has only grown exponentially since the release of IRENA’s report.

In 2024, the value of the recycled solar panel market was estimated to be nearly $493 million, according to Global Market Insights. Many industry projections have it exceeding $2.5 billion over the next decade. This growth is informed by the wider adoption and installation of solar panel systems overall, as well as more advanced recycling technologies that can recover a higher percentage of the panels’ different materials.

The process of recycling a highly engineered product consisting of sandwiched layers of copper, glass, aluminum, plastic, and (mostly) crystalline silicon, or C-Si, is complex. Unless it’s deployed on a massive scale, it’s not terribly cost effective, either. In the race to solve the photovoltaic (PV) recycling issue and avoid millions of tons of e-waste ending up in landfills, many companies have established dedicated plants that mechanically dismantle panels, extract vast quantities of silver, silicon, and other high-value materials, and process waste glass into cullet and plastic for energy. 

Up until now, no solar manufacturing company had its own scalable recycling operation to complete the value chain from start to finish. Hanwha Qcells is intent on changing that.

The Korean solar manufacturer, commonly referred to as Qcells, has been operating in the U.S. since 2019, when the company opened a 300,000-square-foot manufacturing plant in Dalton, Georgia. Since then, Qcells has built and opened a second Dalton plant. The company says that these two factories collectively produce enough panels to generate 5.1 GW annually. That’s a lot of generative capacity, so what do you do with all of those panels once they reach their end of life? Qcells’ answer was to create their own recycling operation.

Early last month, Qcells unveiled its plans to launch EcoRecycle, a dedicated in-house solar recycling operation in Cartersville, about 50 miles south of Dalton. Once complete, the company claims it will have the capacity to recycle roughly 250 MW worth of panels annually. While this projection represents a small fraction of its production capacity, Qcells’ announcement says it plans to “expand its recycling network across the U.S.”

This development marks an industry first: a C-Si producer that operates “a full value chain, conducting both solar panel manufacturing and recycling on U.S. soil,” explained Kelly Weger, Qcells’ senior director of sustainability. “Effectively managing solar waste is essential to ensure the long-term sustainability and resilience of the clean energy sector,” she said in a statement. 

The EcoRecycle operation has three main initiatives: maintaining a low-cost, take-back service that will benefit customers; building a proprietary “high-purity resource separation technology” that maximizes material recovery; and promoting a carbon-conscious, circular solar economy. 

The average lifespan of a solar panel is about 25-35 years, which means many of the solar panels that have already been deployed this century are approaching the end of their productivity and need to be replaced. One small comfort is that, according to data from the Department of Energy (DOE), almost 70% of all installed solar panels in operation today were installed in or after 2017. That means we’re at least two decades away from having to manage  huge quantities of decommissioned panels. Still, Qcells’ move to launch EcoRecycle in Georgia is happening not a moment too soon.

Scalability and capacity are, of course, prevailing concerns as the wider solar industry anticipates the decommissioning of tens of millions of solar panels over the next three decades, and consequently, the continued growth of recycling operations themselves. Another concern, and one that should be commensurately graded, is just what all that recycling looks like: What is being recovered and to what ends? How much energy (and carbon) is being spent to power recycling processes? Of the silicon that isn’t recoverable, what goes into refining that waste product to make it useful (or does it go to landfill?) 

The industry consensus of late is that roughly 85% or more of the average existing PV solar panel is recyclable. Many innovators continue to move the needle as well. Recycling company PV Circonomy, for instance, maintains a closed-loop supply chain and has achieved a 99.3% material recovery rate.

Whatever shape Qcells’ proprietary tech assumes, it’s reasonable to hope that it exceeds the 85% threshold, at minimum, while also accounting for other emerging technologies that prioritize easy disassembly, the avoidance of rare and harmful materials, and longer lifespans. 

“Keeping solar panels in the field longer by making them more durable and easier to repair will also slow and reduce the flow of solar panels into the waste stream,” reads a 2024 DOE blog post, authored by that department’s Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO). “An increase in average module lifetime of 2-3 years could decrease waste by 2-3 million metric tons by 2050.”

While the solar recycling industry is still in its nascency, its growth of late is generally attributed to newer environmental laws and regulations regarding hazardous waste disposal. Indeed, sometimes markets do forge ahead when the government steps in. It is worth noting, however, that no federal regulation exists regarding solar recycling. But we should also remain cognizant of recycling’s place within an industry that, despite the Trump’s administration’s best efforts, will only continue to grow globally. 

Industrial scale recycling consumes massive amounts of energy and natural resources, and such operations can even produce their own waste streams. Unless every ounce of material is going into something else, some portion of the value chain is likely to go into landfill or be burned for more energy, resulting in little to no value at that. Design for Recycling guidelines, which make use of modular assemblies and non-hazardous materials, provide an encouraging road map, but they are far from the status quo.

For the time being, true circularity can only be achieved if the solar industry shifts some of its focus onto viable reuse strategies. There may be little hope for those first-generation panels that adorned suburban rooftops more than 20 years ago, but with the benefit of longer lifespans, the need to decommission next-gen panels altogether after 30 or so years will be markedly diminished. Rather than direct much of that so-called waste to recycling plants, they can find new life as solar canopies for parking lots, EV charging stations, or possibly be incorporated into larger agrivoltaic and ground-mounted community solar projects.

Make no mistake: Qcells is on the right track and its efforts to scale up recycling operations are long overdue. As both recycling technology and recycling capacity make advances—which we see with the launch of EcoRecycle—it’s paramount that PV design technology keep pace as well, extending the shelf life of solar panels, and prioritizing reuse over recycling.