Solar waste is piling up, but who’s footing the recycling bill?
Questions about payment, not science, are the main sticking point preventing solar panel recycling from taking off, says Dr Jeremy Ang, founder of Ambiguity Navigation
By 2050, there is going to be almost as many decommissioned solar panels as newly installed solar panels. That’s according to data from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), dating back to 2016.
Fast forward eight years. It’s 2024. Solar panel prices hit an all-time low in November 2023 and haven’t moved much, driving some European homes to opt for solar panels as garden fencing material.
That’s great news from an energy transition perspective, with some analysts finding that it’s now cheaper to generate electricity from renewable energy compared to coal.
But with regulations regarding solar waste lagging behind, it’s a time bomb waiting to be dealt with when these panels are decommissioned 25 to 30 years from now. Especially since China, once the world’s largest importer of waste plastics, decided to literally stop dealing with trash in 2017.
In Australia, experts have already sounded the warning that solar panel waste will reach crisis levels in the next two to three years. The nation began promoting renewables more than a decade ago and is now the global leader in rooftop solar installations, with one in three homes generating their own power. As of 2022, rooftop solar contributes 26% of the total renewable electricity generation in the country.
For now, landfilling solar waste is still the most cost-effective and therefore widespread option. But with regulations on solar waste tightening, recycling and repurposing old solar panels are turning out to be economically feasible in some countries. Ditto for the second-hand solar panel market.
In Europe, waste from solar panel manufacturers must now pay for the collection, treatment, and recovery of their products. In China, the world leader in solar panel manufacturing, the government is planning to implement a “basically mature” full-process recycling system for wind turbines and solar panels by the end of the decade.
To understand where the industry stands, I spoke to Dr Jeremy Ang, newly minted startup founder at Ambiguity Navigation and former research fellow at Nanyang Technological University (NTU). He’s created a process to extract silicon from decommissioned solar panels at higher purity and lower cost (aka “urban mining”) and is pushing for the solar energy industry to adopt circular economy principles.
Prior to solar panel recycling, Ang worked in the NEWSand project under Singapore’s National Environment Agency (NEA) to figure out how to repurpose incinerator bottom ash (IBA) into construction material. He also has a PhD in water treatment and helped to build a wastewater treatment plant for Micron Technology.
As with all ReFi Singapore meetups, the ask-me-anything session turned out to be surprisingly insightful, with friends from EDP Renewables (which acquired Singapore-based solar energy supplier Sunseap in 2022), Ong Gin Keat, Director at waste processing facility Envcares, and Henry Soediarko, Head of Portfolio Management at First Estate Capital Management chipping with industry insights.
The transcript has been edited for clarity and flow. Do listen to the full recording on Spotify or Apple Podcasts for the entire discussion.
Han: Not many people will be interested in the waste industry, especially young people. So what’s your motivation in doing this?
Ang: I think it’s because I’m very sensitive to pollution. I stay in Tuas, the industrial part of Singapore in the west. Whenever the wind blows, I can smell the smell of chemicals and then that gets me irritated.
I actually quarrelled with NEA before. I went for an interview, I blew up, and I scolded them. I told them about the toxic gas blowing to my place and then they tried to defend themselves. They failed.
Han: So this was during your job interview with NEA. You scolded your interviewer.
Ang: Yes it was an interview. I couldn’t control myself.
Han: When I first met you last year you were still a research fellow in NTU. Congratulations on finally coming out into the startup world.
Ang: Yes, it’s my second month at Ambiguity Navigation now.
Han: Tell me about how you’ve been pitching your idea to investors and maybe potential customers. Has the reaction been positive?
Ang: Actually I’ve met around 800 people since last October. Different people get different pitches, accordingly. The ones that are more concerned about nature, I’ll say that recycling solar panels reduces the destruction of nature. If I’m pitching to the waste industry it’ll be about getting value out of waste. Then there’s also the angle of reducing carbon emissions.
Han: In your experience, does the cost reason or the moral reason work better?
Ang: It’s always about cost.
Han: Tell me a bit more about the cost problem with solar waste. How much is it going to cost the planet or maybe even Singapore?
Ang: For solar waste, the issue is the cost of transportation. Most of the solar panel, namely the frame and the glass, has no value. So you need to extract a minimum value, for example by extracting silicon or getting revenue from carbon credits, to pay for the logistics.
Of course if people are willing to pay for your recycling process, then of course there will be the best option. But landfilling or crush-and-dispose is still cheaper.
This gap needs to be approached carefully because traditional recycling methods have never worked. If it hasn’t worked for 10 years, you’re not going to get it to work with a pure recycling mindset.
There needs to be a strategic policy that includes incorporating carbon emission [removal or avoidance] strategies. It’s not just about technology or recycling, that’s too simplistic.
Han: I think we see the same problem with the entire renewable industry right, the science has been there for the longest time but it’s not been implemented because it’s not economically feasible.
For the solar industry it makes sense to install solar panels now because the cost has gone down significantly. But no one’s taking care of the recycling bit. In your opinion, what would be the pull or push factor to close that loop?
Ang: No one’s making money from recycling solar panels at the moment. Except maybe for the US, which implemented the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) in 2022. They say that so long as your silicon doesn’t come from China, they’re going to pay double the price for it.
The other option is for solar panel manufacturers to incorporate recycled silicon into their panels, and then charge a premium for it. Because it’s a more environmentally friendly product compared to the rest of the market.
Carbon credits may be another revenue stream if you can prove carbon removals or avoidance, and then there’s the carbon accounting bit. To be able to say that using recycled silicon reduces Scope 1, 2 or 3 emissions.
So let’s say if a company wants to dispose of its solar panels, and then you can prove that you can recover the silicon, polymer, and prove that no scope 3 emissions were incurred, then that’s a pull factor.
Kruthika Eswaran (Lead Sustainability and Climate Consultant, Net Zero Think): How would you change the narrative to convince people that recycling is a better option than landfilling?
Ang: I think currently the most pressing issue is probably that countries are just shifting their waste to Africa and leaving it there. I mean, it’s ok…
Han: It’s not okay.
Ang: If that’s what Africans want to do, you can’t control the Africans. You can’t go there and point fingers. You can bring the tech to them, it’s an option.
Narrative-wise, recycling reduces the reliance on extracting natural resources because you create a system where materials are recycled within the urban area continuously. This process [urban mining] is also better than landfilling because landfilling takes clean waste and puts it into a mess and it’s challenging to extract recyclable materials from that.
I think that’s how the circular economy has to grow.
Ong: In general, the policy is to keep or recycle the waste where it is generated because it’s difficult to export it because of the Basel convention which controls transnational waste shipments. It can be done but it’s quite onerous.
So what you need is a pilot plant in Singapore or somewhere nearby with an industrial player to prove that it can work. But once you get it done, you’ll get lots of people copying. So the first guy that gets this done is fundamentally doing national service. But your advantage is your head start.
Your biggest problem is what to do with the glass. If you concentrate on solving the downside you don’t have to worry about the upside.
There are two main players for glass recycling. One collects from the kopitiams and sends it to Johor to be crushed into little pellets and then shipped off somewhere else. There’s another one that gets the glass and converts them into a material that is used as an abrasive for ship hull blasting. But the volume is very low. In fact, we have to pay him to take the glass away.
Audience: What’s your call to action? What would you like the audience to help to contribute to your work?
Ang: I think maybe the energy portion, they need to ask the company to start to pay for recycling. If I’m not wrong, the companies should have included recycling as part of the terms and conditions.
Soediarko: Actually it makes sense for the module maker to be in charge of recycling to ensure the continuity of their business. It could be a competitive advantage for them to say that they’re the greener option in the market because they’ve invested in recycling and they take care of the asset at the end of life.
Ong: You might want to consider getting the message out. Because the public doesn’t know and it’s only your seat getting hot. It’s like consumer pressure. But it’s a long game and you need to be funded for that. NEA spent millions doing campaigns to convince people to return their trays at the hawker centres before finally making it into a law. Return your trays or we’ll fine you.
You could even form a consortium of solar panel manufacturers to address this issue. Because you just need a few of them to be in and the rest will say “I also want to be in”.
Soediarko: What you need is scale, and support.
Han: Which brings me to my next point, so China manufacturers are about cheaper, better, faster. What makes you think that they’re gonna invest in a new technology to do something nice for the planet.
Ong: It’s good for them because we’re exporting the problem away from China. It’s similar to what we have here in waste management. We have a food manufacturing company that exports its products. But it cannot export the waste that’s created as part of the manufacturing process. Singapore can’t export its waste, which is why we have business.
Audience: And I would like to say maybe it’s an assumption that the Chinese manufacturers don’t care about their product’s life cycle. They are probably also aware that the resources from mining might run low.
Soediarko: We only invest in certain companies due to the mandate. So by default, a large part of our books are in Chinese companies, whether they are listed in Shanghai, Shenzhen, or in Hong Kong.
Based on my understanding of how the Chinese government works, they are super pushy about greening things. They’re the only government in the world that can push people to give up their combustion engine cars for electric cars, rightly or wrongly. They’re already at the forefront of renewable energy and anything that involves decarbonization. So the next stage is actually recycling of everything.
Ong: You could also sell them the idea of urban mining. They won’t have to dig up 100 tons of rock to get maybe 50kg of precious metal.
Soediarko: When we went to Japan last year, a couple of these recycling companies presented and this urban mining concept actually was there. So it could definitely work.
Arun Devan (ReFi entrepreneur): Have you considered repurposing the decommissioned solar panels rather than crushing it down for recycling?
Ang: I spoke to the Water Room to combine old solar panels with their water membranes to create a grid for the rural areas. They supply these kits to Gaza and other war zones. But I haven’t started out yet.
Actually my presentation was supposed to be two-pronged. The first part was about reusing old solar panels but I skipped it because it’s too elaborate. Whether it’s effective or not also depends on the quality of the solar cells. Some of the ones we received were very small and dirty.
Han: Any last words from you, Jeremy?
Ang: I think a circular economy is going to be important. So I think everybody should get a sense in this area. Not just in e-waste, but in general.
Word from our sponsor:
First Estate Capital Management is leasing out some desks on the second floor of their office space at 77A Tras Street. If you’re a heritage nerd and love having artifacts around (old maps, coupons to Burmese oilfelds from 2020 etc), this is the place for you! Write to Henry Soediarko to enquire about rates (Hsoediarko@firstestatecapital.com).
Some pictures of the space below
