（Image source/Xinhua News Agency）

 

With the rapid development of the photovoltaic industry, the recycling and harmless treatment of waste photovoltaic modules has become the "last mile" problem to open up the photovoltaic green chain. The agency predicts that China's photovoltaic modules will enter the "retirement period" in 2025, and the number of discarded photovoltaic modules will reach 20 million tons in 2050.

However, China's waste photovoltaic module recycling industry is still in its infancy, and waste module disposal companies are mixed. "Some small workshops simply dismantle the recycled waste components and sell them for usable objects such as frames and glass, while other parts are mixed with domestic waste and incinerated. This not only causes great pollution to the environment, but also may lead to the expulsion of bad coins. Good money greatly affects the healthy competition in the industry." Zhu Jie, general manager of Nantong Riyixin Environmental Protection Technology Co., Ltd., which is engaged in the recycling of waste photovoltaic modules, told a reporter from China Securities Journal.

 

Entering the "retirement period" in 2025

In the first quarter of this year, China's photovoltaic installed capacity exceeded market expectations. According to data from the National Energy Administration, the newly installed photovoltaic capacity in the first quarter was 13.2GW, a year-on-year increase of 148%. The newly added and cumulative installed capacity of photovoltaics in China has ranked first in the world for many consecutive years. By the end of 2021, the cumulative installed capacity of photovoltaic power generation in China will reach 306GW.

 

With the vigorous development of the photovoltaic industry, the problem of recycling and disposal of waste photovoltaic modules has become prominent. According to the forecast of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), from 2025, China will begin to produce large quantities of retired photovoltaic modules. By 2030, waste photovoltaic modules will reach about 1.5 million tons, and in 2050 will reach 20 million tons.

"Based on the fact that China's photovoltaic power generation installed capacity reached the GW-level scale for the first time in 2011 and the component lifespan is 20 years, a large number of scrapped photovoltaic modules will be generated in 2031. However, the large-scale 'retirement period' of photovoltaic modules is likely to be greatly advanced." China Photovoltaic Industry Association Jiang Hua, Assistant Secretary-General and Director of the New Energy Industry Research Office of CCID Think Tank Institute of Integrated Circuits, said that due to the uneven quality of photovoltaic power plants built in China in the early days, it is very likely that they will be eliminated in advance if they do not reach the retirement period; and there are early subsidies. Due to the high return on investment, the power station may also replace high-power components in advance and produce obsolete components.

Many experts said that if photovoltaic modules are not recycled after they are scrapped, it will cause great pollution to the ecological environment. In the past, waste components were disposed of by burial, incineration, etc. The metals such as lead, tin, and cadmium in the components have high leaching toxicity, which will cause great waste of resources and environmental pollution.

Jiang Hua introduced that many countries around the world have relevant deployment and research on the recycling of waste photovoltaic modules. Among them, the EU has established a non-profit industry organization PV Cycle, which collects membership fees according to the market share of enterprises. These fees are mainly used for the recycling and centralized treatment of waste photovoltaic modules.

　The recycling industry is just getting started

At present, the recycling industry of waste photovoltaic modules in China is still in its infancy. Due to the problems of imperfect policies and regulations, high recycling costs, and mixed waste module disposal companies in China, the recycling of waste photovoltaic modules in China has not formed a recycling and disposal industry scale that matches the decommissioning of photovoltaic modules.

In January this year, eight departments including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology jointly issued the "Implementation Plan on Accelerating the Comprehensive Utilization of Industrial Resources", proposing to promote the R&D and industrial application of emerging solid waste comprehensive utilization technologies such as waste photovoltaic modules and wind power blades, and explore the comprehensive utilization of emerging solid waste. The technical route has filled the policy gap in the emerging field of comprehensive utilization of solid waste such as waste photovoltaic modules.

"However, there is currently no special management policy for the recycling and disposal of waste photovoltaic modules." Jiang Hua introduced that the previously implemented "Regulations on the Management of the Recycling and Disposal of Waste Electrical and Electronic Products" did not cover photovoltaic module products, and the recycling of photovoltaic modules was not perfect. The processing standard system, the component rejection standard and the whole life cycle management information.

High cost is also an unavoidable threshold for the photovoltaic module recycling market. He Shuangquan, president of Wuxi Suntech Solar Power Co., Ltd., believes that a large part of photovoltaic modules are currently built in remote northwest areas or on roofs, which makes it difficult to recycle modules and high logistics costs. In addition, the technology is still immature, the investment consumption is relatively large, the purity of the recycled material is not high, and the scale has not yet been formed, so the cost of recycling waste photovoltaic modules is relatively high. According to Zhu Jie's calculation, the total revenue generated by the recycling of a mainstream 60-type photovoltaic module is 63.1 yuan, and the recycling cost of each module is about 69 yuan.

There are even processing companies whose production lines are idle due to the difficulty in obtaining waste photovoltaic modules. "Our company's annual production capacity is 15,000 tons, but the actual annual processing capacity is only more than 600 tons, and the equipment is idle most of the time." Zhu Jie said that the reasons for the difficulty in obtaining waste photovoltaic modules: on the one hand, due to photovoltaic modules There is no clear standard for judging waste, and if there is no compliant processing process, it is difficult to hand over to a third party for disposal; on the other hand, it is difficult to transfer waste photovoltaic modules across provinces.

　　The policy system needs to be improved

Many listed companies have stepped up their deployment in the emerging market of photovoltaic module recycling. On May 6, GEM replied to investors on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange Interactive Exchange that the company has been paying attention to the recycling and utilization of photovoltaic modules, and has also launched related technical research, and will build a recycling factory for recycling photovoltaic modules in due course. JinkoSolar stated in its 2021 annual report that in 2019, the company started to build and test a PV module recycling demonstration line, and undertook the “13th Five-Year Plan” national major project “Crystalline Silicon PV Module Recycling and Processing Complete Technology and Equipment” project to promote the scale Recycling of chemical components.

In response to the multiple problems faced by the photovoltaic recycling industry, experts call for the improvement of the "1+N" policy system for the recycling of waste photovoltaic modules as soon as possible, the establishment of a special waste photovoltaic module recycling institution, and the establishment of a waste photovoltaic module recycling system.

Jianghua suggested to cooperate with relevant departments to study, formulate and publish the management methods and relevant rules for the recycling and disposal of waste photovoltaic modules, and clearly stipulate the responsible entities for the recycling of waste photovoltaic modules, the qualification certification of processing enterprises, and the recycling and processing procedures; further sort out and improve the technical standards for module recycling. System and certification rules, do a good job in the top-level design of standards, and speed up the formulation and revision of standards. He Shuangquan believes that we can learn from the model of the European PV Cycle organization and set up an independent, professional and fully operational waste photovoltaic module recycling organization in China.

In response to the mixed situation of waste module processing enterprises, Zhu Jie believes that industry supervision should be strengthened, direct incineration or landfill disposal of waste photovoltaic modules is strictly prohibited, and enterprises that cause further pollution and emissions to the environment in the processing of waste modules should be banned and maintained. Good industry development environment. (Reporter Ouyang Chunxiang)

From China Securities Journal