While most solar modules last 25 years or longer, they can be damaged before their useful end of life, and any defective modules need to be removed from service and replaced.
For example, in Indiana, dozens of solar panels at a Hoosier Energy Utility were damaged as a result of a truck that ran off the highway and crashed into the edge of a project.
When this happened, Inovateus had to decide how to dispose of the damaged solar modules. With our new sustainability initiative, we knew there would be a significant environmental impact if we decided to simply send the modules to a landfill. Adding damaged solar modules to a landfill would not only add waste to the Indiana environment, but it would also miss a valuable recycling opportunity, since more than 90% of a silicon solar panel can be reused.
Over the last five years, the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) has led photovoltaic (PV) recycling efforts for the solar industry. As a part of this effort, SEIA created a national network of recycling partners and a working group that continues to create the infrastructure needed to recycle solar modules in the coming years. As a SEIA member, Inovateus was able to access PV module recyclers in their network and initiate the process right away.
Because Inovateus Solar’s mission is Building a Brilliant Tomorrow, we recognized our responsibility to find a way to reuse the recyclable materials.
Partnering with Hoosier Energy, Inovateus collected two pallets worth of solar panels that were damaged. Working together, we were fortunate to find and work with Cascade Eco Minerals, a SEIA PV recycling partner, with eight locations across the US. Because Cascade Eco Minerals has a strict “No Landfill” policy, they were the perfect fit for all of our sustainability objectives. As a part of their recycling work, they break down the solar modules into usable glass and other raw materials for future manufacturing.
The solar module recycling market is a relatively new industry, but it will inevitably expand over the next decade as more projects meet their original end-of-life goals.
Inovateus hopes to continue to grow this important solar segment and to work with our customers to support more recycling and other sustainable decommissioning practices.
