Recycling materials from green energy technologies (Signal)

The revision of the Renewable Energy Directive sets a binding renewable energy target  to represent at least 42.5% of Europe’s energy mix by 2030. Green energy technologies — such as batteries, solar photovoltaic (PV) panels and wind turbines — are already considered key to meeting renewable energy targets. The deployment of such energy transition might be threatened by the risks of supply of some of the key materials and technologies that are needed.

Moreover, while the wider use of green energy technologies will deliver substantial environmental benefits, this is also expected to create other environmental pressures. The manufacture of technologies such as PV panels and wind turbines, for example, is increasing demand for the extraction of specific raw materials. Researchers have also warned that increasing volumes of waste from the green technology sector could impose a significant environmental and economic burden on future generations. New types of waste are also generated when these technologies reach their end of life. Increasing the recycling of green energy technologies when they reach their end-of-life, can contribute to both reducing environmental impacts of this waste stream and increasing the security of supply of materials that are key for this value chain. However, greater capacity for handling green technologies’ waste and more advanced techniques for recycling are needed. There is also a lack of comprehensive data on the material stocks contained in these waste streams.

The EU’s first generation of wind turbines is beginning to reach its end-of-life. Although repurposing or recycling wind turbines has both economic and environmental benefits, recycling them is a technical challenge. The glass fibre-reinforced thermoset polymer composite materials from which components are made are difficult to reprocess. Similarly, on the solar panel front, good recycling practices are not yet fully developed in Europe.

For example, many waste facilities in the EU incinerate part of a solar PV panel’s mass, which can contain elements such as silver, copper and silicon. Based on studies carried out in the United States, these materials can represent around two-thirds of the total monetary value of the materials making up the silicon PV cell.

EU-wide policies are key to enabling more green technology recycling across all Member States. For example, the new regulation on batteries and waste batteries, setting a minimum mandatory recycling content for different materials, for instance a target of recovering 80% of lithium from waste batteries by the end of 2031, and sets targets for producers collection of waste portable batteries and for waste batteries for light means of transport. The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive includes targets for the recovery and recycling/preparing for reuse for photovoltaic panels, the only green energy technology classified as WEEE: recovering 85% of the collected PV panel waste and reusing/recycling 80% of it from 2018 onwards. However, only 6 of the 12 countries that reported this data met this target in 2021 as shown on the Figure.

Numerous technical challenges exist around recycling materials from renewable energy technologies — such as in separating and recycling composite materials. Some initiatives and projects across the EU are already trying to address these challenges. For example, Blades2Build is developing solutions for recycling wind turbine blades, with the aim of decreasing the disposal of blades in EU landfill by 90% come 2030. ReProSolar, a five-year project launched in 2021, is exploring methods to recover all solar panel elements at an industrial scale. Other examples include Photorama, a project investigating technologies to improve the recycling of PVs and the recovery of secondary raw materials; and Icarus, which is working towards achieving higher rates of silicon recycling from solar PVs.   

There is also a lack of recycling capacity for green energy technologies, on which countries are working. The first European plant for recycling waste solar panels was opened in France in 2018. The ROSI solar panel recycling plant was launched and is expected to be able to recycle ten thousand tonnes of waste PV panels in 2025.

Given this, additional regulatory incentives may be needed across the EU or within individual Member States to stimulate development of the industry. The proposal for a new Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation could play an important role by setting new requirements to enhance the lifespans and recyclability of PV panels and other green energy devices. This could increase the circular use of materials in green technologies (when not already covered by product-specific legislation) and reduce the risk of downstream pollution.