The Recycling Management of Solar panels
To achieve net-zero emission by 2050 (NZE2050) is an ambitious target among nations. According to an estimation by International Energy Agency (IEA), we need to increase the share of renewables in the global electricity supply from 27% in 2019 to 60% in 2030 to achieve this goal.
A study reported that up to the first six months of 2020, wind and solar power shared 10% of the global electricity generation. Solar energy is undoubtedly one of the fastest-growing renewable energy sources worldwide.
Yet, when we greatly increase the use of solar energy, we must further understand protecting the environment better. Solar panels are photovoltaic modules mainly made of glass, plastic, silicon and other heavy metals. Either landfill or incineration of dead solar panels will lead to underground water pollution or release of toxic gases.
Generally, in Hong Kong, when solar panels reach the end of their lifespan in around 25 years, the manufacturers will disassemble and recycle them with support from the contractors under the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) requirements.
Hong Kong does not have its solar panel recycling industry, and we need to do the clean-up through contractors and return the used solar panel modules to the manufacturers for recycling. However, the government has already got the estimated figure. By 2030, there will be hundreds of thousands, even over a million solar panels in use in the city. We hope that there will be investments for developing the relevant industry as soon as possible.
Every solar panel has an EVA sealing film that keeps its components together to make it strong and durable. One of the challenges of recycling solar panels is to remove this film completely. But the good news is that the researchers from the state-run Korea Institute of Energy Research(KIER) have figured the way out! Their researchers claimed that they have developed a technology that no matter the photovoltaic modules were damaged or not, the retrieval rate of the glass materials is 100%. The recovery rate of the other components also reaches 80% that can even be applied to the new solar panels. Researchers have successfully found a solution to refine silicon collected from 72 discarded commercial panels into six-inch single crystal ingots and wafers. Lee Jin-seok, KIER’s Principal Investigator, expressed that this technology is key to the net-zero emission because recycling one solar panel reduces 1.2 tons of greenhouse gas emissions. The Korean government is also planning, by 2023, to launch the "extended producer responsibility" policy, in which penalties will be charged to the manufacturers or importers of solar panels if they do not retrieve and recycle dead solar panels at a certain percentage.
Moreover, a non-profit and member-based organisation called PV CYCLE offers solar energy-related waste management.
With the ever-advancing renewable energy technologies, we hope humans will overcome the challenges we meet and achieve the goal of NZE2050.
(To read the article at SolarCare Programme’s website HERE)
太陽能板的回收管理
全球過百個國家正在或正考慮以2050年前達致零排放（NZE2050）為目標。國際能源署(International Energy Agency, IEA)估計，全球的可再生能源產電比例須由2019年的27%增至60%才有望達成此目標。
有研究指出直至2020年的上半旬，風能和太陽能發電已佔世界產電量的10%。太陽能是全球增長最快的可再生能源之一。
不過在大幅採用太陽能之時，我們也要學習如何能進一步保護環境。太陽能板主要由玻璃、塑膠、矽和其它重金屬等製成。若將壽命已盡的太陽能板送到堆填區，就有可能污染地下水源，而將之焚化，則會釋出有毒氣體。
太陽能板的壽命大概只有25年。在香港，廠商一般都會把不能正常運作的「退役」太陽能板拆件回收，以便循環再造。全個過程由廠商和承建商合作進行，以確保一切程序符合國際電工委員會(IEC)的要求。
香港還沒有自己的太陽能板回收行業，所有的太陽能板回收工作暫時要透過承建商協助清理，再送返生產商作回收處理。但據政府推算，在2030年或之前，香港將會使用到數十萬，甚至過百萬塊太陽能板。所以，我們期待業界能盡快投入資金發展相關行業，以應付可見的太陽能板回收需求。
回收太陽能板的其中一個難題，就是太陽能板採用 EVA 膜封裝結合在一起，形成堅固耐用的模組，而這層貼在矽晶電池上的膜很難完整移除。可喜的是，由南韓國家營運的能源研究機構KIER (Korea Institute of Energy Research) 解決了這個問題。KIER的研究員指他們已經發展出一種技術，能在無論太陽能板有否受損的情況下，回收其中所有玻璃物料，而其他物料的恢復率也達80%，並可以把它們重新應用到新的太陽能板上。研究人員更已成功把72塊被廢棄的太陽能板精煉成 6 英寸的單晶錠與晶圓。KIER 首席研究員Lee Jin-seok 表示，這項新技術對實踐零碳排放有著關鍵性作用，因為回收一噸太陽能板就等於減少排放溫室氣體達1.2噸之多。南韓政府亦已計劃在2030年前實行「擴大生產者責任」政策。如果太陽能生產商和進口商未能回收和循環再造一定比率的「退役」太陽能板，政府將對他們徵收罰款。
另外，坊間有一個名為PV CYCLE的非牟利組織，為世界不同地方提供太陽能系統相關的廢物管理。
可再生能源技術不斷革新發展，希望人類能迎難而上，解決在實行淨零排放上遇到的困難，達成眾國的理想和目標。