Since the introduction of the feed-in tariff in 2014, the installed capacity of domestic photovoltaic power generation has grown rapidly, continuing to maintain an average annual growth rate of more than 100%, at present, the cumulative installed capacity of domestic photovoltaic power generation has exceeded 200GW, and it is expected that in 2022, the cumulative installed photovoltaic power generation in China will exceed 300GW.
With the rapid development of photovoltaic power generation, also derived from the recycling of used photovoltaic modules. According to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) is expected that by 2030, the cumulative waste of PV modules worldwide will reach millions of tons; and by 2050, it will reach tens of millions of tons of scale. Another forecast by the Institute of Electrical Engineering of the Chinese Academy of Sciences is that the amount of domestic PV module scrap will also increase significantly from 2020 onwards, and by 2030, domestic scrap PV modules can generate 1.45 million tons of carbon steel, 1.1 million tons of glass, 540,000 tons of plastic, 260,000 tons of aluminum, 170,000 tons of copper, 50,000 tons of silicon and 550 tons of silver.
According to the research results of the 863 project of the Ministry of Science and Technology, even if the existing photovoltaic power plants are well maintained, by 2034, the domestic retired photovoltaic modules will reach a cumulative scale of nearly 60GW; if the power plant operation and maintenance conditions are normal, the cumulative retired modules will probably exceed 700GW. according to Lv Fang, a member of the group and secretary general of the PV Special Committee of China Green Supply Chain Alliance, by 2050, China's waste PV modules will reach 20 million tons by 2050, which is 2,000 times the weight of the Eiffel Tower.
On the one hand, if these used modules are not handled properly, it will bring serious negative impact to the environment and society, making the original "green" intention become no longer "green".
On the other hand, the new energy industry is the main connotation and important support of low carbon development and green economy, low carbon development and green economy is the driving force of the new energy industry. When the development of the photovoltaic industry left behind the issue of waste photovoltaic group price is not properly resolved, will certainly hinder the sustainable development of the photovoltaic industry.
The traditional development model based on resource and energy consumption has posed an increasingly serious challenge to human living environment, green development and the development and utilization of clean energy has become the main theme of development around the world, in this process, the photovoltaic industry has played an important role and will certainly play a greater role in history.
However, at the same time, the large-scale application of photovoltaic power generation has given rise to the problem of recycling of used photovoltaic modules. Therefore, it is of great practical significance to study the recycling of retired and used PV modules.
First, the recycling of used PV modules is beneficial to reuse resources.
The large-scale application of solar photovoltaic power generation technology will substantially increase the consumption of some rare metals. For example, the preparation of electrodes for crystalline silicon cells requires the consumption of silver, tellurium, indium, gallium, etc.. These materials also have a wide range of application prospects in other cutting-edge technology fields. If the rare metals are not recycled after the PV modules are scrapped, it will certainly cause great waste.
According to the research of EU PV CYCLE organization, in the waste PV modules, glass accounts for about 70% of the total weight, aluminum material accounts for about 18%, and semiconductor material accounts for about 4%.
In other words, most of the materials of PV modules have the possibility of recycling. Through the recycling of used PV modules, the recycling of rare metals, glass, aluminum and semiconductors can be realized, in order to reduce the exploitation of primary resources, reduce the energy consumption of resource refining and reduce the impact and damage to the ecological environment.
Secondly, the recycling of used photovoltaic modules can give rise to new industrial forms and create more employment value.
From the current recycling process of European used PV modules, the whole operation and management process of used PV modules processing includes collection, registration, transportation, recycling and treatment, etc., each of which requires a large number of personnel, especially the recycling process requires professional recycling technicians. Therefore, the recycling of used PV modules can give rise to new industrial forms and create more employment value.
Furthermore, the recycling of used PV modules is conducive to realizing the real green in the whole life cycle of PV power generation, thus promoting the sustainable development of the solar industry.
Since the industrialization of photovoltaic power generation technology, governments and enterprises have been actively committed to the green production and operation of photovoltaic power generation. So far, the industrial chain of crystalline silicon photovoltaic technology from raw material production, cell manufacturing, module processing to system installation and operation has achieved pollution-free and environment-friendly requirements, but the random disposal of used photovoltaic modules has given rise to many environmental pollution problems.
New energy industry is the main connotation and important support of low-carbon development and green economy, while low-carbon development and green economy are the driving force of new energy industry, and the two complement each other. Therefore, only by doing a good job in the last link of the photovoltaic industry chain - recycling of used photovoltaic modules, can we achieve a green and pollution-free photovoltaic industry from the source to the terminal, thus promoting the sustainable development of the solar industry.
