These busted solar panels are an early example of a looming problem — and an opportunity

In a sprawling industrial building in Brooks, Alta., about two hours east of Calgary, is a former pheasant hatchery that’s now stacked waist-high with thousands of dusty, damaged solar panels. 

Dan Carrocci, who’s worked in renewable energy construction for more than a decade, has long been troubled by the lack of end-of-life options for this infrastructure and is stockpiling the old panels in hopes of developing a commercially viable means of recycling them. 

He’s now built up a stash of nearly 10,000 panels that have been damaged during manufacturing, pummelled by hail or banged up during installation. 

“I call it the ‘big green elephant’ of renewable energy — is the waste material,” said Carrocci, president of Sunset Renewable Asset Management. 

Installation of solar and wind power is on the rise, but according to a 2021 report from the University of Ottawa think-tank the Smart Prosperity Institute, decommissioned solar panels and wind turbine blades often end up sitting in storage or being sent to landfill. 

Much of the wind and solar infrastructure in this country is fairly new, but by 2050 the Smart Prosperity Institute said conservative estimates suggest Canada could see a cumulative 365,000 to 470,000 tonnes of expired solar panel waste and 4.5 million tonnes of wind turbine waste, though the institute said the total will be much higher if the country plans to hit its net-zero targets.

“Just producing that much waste, landfilling it going forward, it’s not really a sustainable solution,” said Geoff McCarney, the institute’s senior research director. 

While it’s critical to keep ramping up use of renewables, he said, there’s concern “we’re creating other environmental problems while trying to address the climate problem.”

Some businesses are looking at this looming source of waste with dollar signs in their eyes, and experts say there could be a big opportunity for companies working now to develop systems to dismantle and recycle panels and turbines at the end of their lifespan. 

“I think companies that are thinking about recycling now … are really going to be in boom times in 20 years or so,” said Evan Wilson, a vice-president with the Canadian Renewable Energy Association (CanREA).

Recyclable – but not getting recycled

Both solar panels and wind turbines are between 85 and 90 per cent recyclable, according to CanREA, but that doesn’t mean it’s an easy process.

“They’re recyclable for sure, or at least most of the materials are recyclable,” said Warren Mabee, director of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Policy at Queen’s University. “But it’s challenging and it might cost more than you get back in the value of the material that you’re recycling.”

The Alberta Recycling Management Authority got an early taste at how tricky these materials can be when, in 2020, it started accepting solar panels as electronics waste through a pilot project.

 “We soon realized it’s a very difficult material to recycle,” said Ed Gugenheimer, the authority’s CEO. 

During the pilot, they refurbished as many panels as possible. Those that couldn’t be reused were ultimately set aside until they could send a truckload down to the United States, where facilities were already in place to manage the material. 

“I think shipping to the U.S. is probably not an optimal solution,” said Gugenheimer, who said the authority is now working with the province on a more “homegrown” system. 

Carocci, with Sunset Renewables, is hoping to fill part of that gap. His company said it’s developed a proprietary mobile deconstruction unit to strip the panels for parts, which can then be sent for recycling. 

“Some of the metals can go directly to industrial metal recycling, like we don’t want to reinvent the wheel there,” said Carrocci.

“Some of the materials like the plastics and the glass and even the silicon, we feel that we can develop new products of value,” like concrete or asphalt, he said.

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As for wind turbines, the major barrier to recycling is the blades. These are sometimes repurposed — say, as park benches — but they’re made of composite material that can be difficult to break down and recycle. 

“It’s a very challenging process because of the robust nature of the composites,” said Osayuki Osazuwa, CEO of the Jeosal Materials Research Corporation in Kingston, Ont.

This is not just a problem with wind turbines, but with boat hulls, he said, about 43,000 of which reach the end of their lifespan every year. 

“It’s becoming a burden for the environment and there’s a need to find solutions,” said Osazuwa, whose company is working to recycle fibreglass and turn it into fibre-reinforced concrete. 

Montreal-based FibeCycle is also trying to tackle the problem of what to do with old wind turbines. 

The company says it’s developed a method of breaking down the composite material in the blades to make new fibre-reinforced polymers, which can be used in a range of applications from construction to 3D printing. 

The idea, said executive director Andrew Csinger, is that by using recovered glass fibres instead of new glass fibres to make this material, they can reduce its environmental impact.

“We can do car parts, we can do iPhone cases, we can do furniture, we can do construction materials, there’s all kinds of applications,” said Csinger, who founded the business while an entrepreneur-in-residence at McGill University. 

“It’s a huge market.”

Provinces consider solutions

Beyond the plans of individual businesses, McCarney, with the Smart Prosperity Institute, said there are questions that need to be answered to come up with a coherent recycling system:

• How do we build reverse supply chains to get old materials out of rural and remote communities? 

• Should municipalities ultimately shoulder the responsibility for disposal, or should there be an upfront fee for producers and distributors?

These questions are particularly important, he said, as both solar panels and turbines can contain critical minerals that shouldn’t go to waste.

“If we’re not developing plans to actively recover, reuse, repurpose those materials, we’re foregoing a potential source for them, and we’re amplifying the material supply challenges we’re going to have,” McCarney said. 

Some provinces have started to think about solutions. B.C. is in the process of adding solar panels to its recycling regulation, and Alberta is building on its previous e-waste pilot program to develop a permanent system of recycling solar panels as well as wind turbines.

On the other end of the spectrum, Warren Mabee, with Queen’s University, said he also hopes to see more companies consider what will happen at the end of a product’s lifespan when they design it in the first place.

“The more we can design for recyclability upfront, the easier it will be for those people 25 years down the road who have to have this conversation and try to figure out what to do with the stuff,” he said.