Extended Producer Responsibility for Solar Photovoltaic panels

Transcription

1 Extended Producer Responsibility for Solar Photovoltaic panels Practices and Challenges from Collective vs. Individual Producer Responsibility Cases Sunanda Mehta IIIEE, Lund university 17

2 Contents Research objective Why PV? Case descriptions Findings and analysis EPR goal performance for CPR and IPR systems Conclusion Limitations Remaining questions

3 Research objective: Evaluation of the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) practices in Collective (CPR) vs. Individual Producer Responsibility (IPR) systems related to end-of-life management of Solar Photovoltaic panels to understand the main motivating factors that influence ecodesign (one of the three main goals of EPR) and the extent to which EPR plays a role in incentivizing eco-design.

4 Why PV? Global PV deployment has increased at an unprecedented rate since its initial adoption in early 2000 (222 GW in 2015) Consequently, so will the PV module waste post the stipulated average of 30 year life span Modules contain potentially hazardous material such as Cadmium and Lead which can lead to environmental and human harm if improperly handled. Modules also contain rare and critical materials such as Tellurium (Te), Silver, Indium (I), etc.

5 Germany

6 Italy

7 First Solar Old take-back system: - Customers would call/ FS - FS is responsible for collection and transport. To its nearest recycling facility. New take back system: - Report values (new panels and waste volumes) to the Clearing House Stiftung EAR - Customers use Pay-As-You-Go model to fund the eol treatment of the panels - FS joined a Producer collective-compliance scheme (Zentek GmBH) for municipal waste.

8 Findings and analysis - EPR goal performance

9 Infrastructure improvement

10 Collection and Legislative responsibilities recycling rates Germany Italy Context Population (million) Area (km2) 3,57,376 3,01,338 System architecture WEEE legislation ElectroG2 Act Oct, 2015 Legislation No March 2014 Scope of products Photovoltaic - Group 6 Small household appliances, consumer equipment, office automation, computer appliances, lighting devices and Photovoltaic - Group 4 Collection Responsibility Municipality/ Producer Municipality/ Producer Financial responsibility Producer Producer Information responsibility Municipality Municipality Collection points ~11,600 ~4000 Main PROs PV Cycle, Take-e-way PV Cycle, Eco-PV Performance Average tonnes 'Put on the Market' ( ) Collected (t) (2014) % recycled of collected % recovered of collected Kg per capita collected in

11 RELIGHT srl

12 First solar Extremely high take back and recycling rate of FS panels. Guaranteed and free take-back programme across EU Unique data metrics code given to each panel (Serial no., manufacturing location, etc)

13 Closing material loops Waste volumes continues to be a major deterrent to specialized treatment research investment Pilot stage recycling and recovery initiatives

14 Full Recovery End-of-Life Photovoltaic project, SASIL SpA

15 First Solar First Solar s recycling technology allows it to establish a continuous flow of waste PV coming back into its system and thereby avoids the common challenge that affects the recycling industry - acute shortage of PV waste volumes - Andreas Wade, First Solar

16 Eco-design for solar panels

17 Eco design in First Solar panels Types of eco-design approaches: Life Cycle Approach for identification of hotspots - from manufacturing to the components that go into making of the panel (raw materials, water, energy mix, emissions, etc) Multi criteria optimization Improved life span of the panel Use of recycled glass cullet (~30%) in the new panels Use of waste from mining industry as raw materials Te and Cd Making the panels more modular to improve their recyclability

18 Motivations behind the eco-design in F.S. panels Risk involved with supply of essential materials: Tellurium is classified as a critical material by US DOE, EC and the US DLA First Solar faces intense global scrutiny for its use of Cadmium in its panels Availability of suitable raw material [.]supply risks are not only linked to the scarcity of specific materials but also to the availability of suppliers which can produce certain materials to the specifications. - Andreas Wade, Global Sustainability Director, First Solar

19 Cost reduction by improving efficiency of in-house recycling technology: F.S. has its own recycling facilities. Thus, improvement of the recycling technology has a direct impact on its cost. Overall cost reduction of >50% due to sustainable recycling technology Improve technology to recover and make use of more recycled material >95% recovery of semiconductor material Output and Input capacity expansion Customer satisfaction: Customers pay special attention to the overall environmental footprint of their product Marketing material includes environmental attributes carbon footprint, energy payback time, recyclability, eco- friendliness.

20 CPR systems Not feasible from an economic standpoint Long life span of PV modules further discourages investment (main interest lies in energy efficiency improvement) Being part of a Collective scheme discourages attempts at improving design for better environmental performance since the cost is evenly shared by all producers

21 Conclusion First Solar already had a take back system and recycling facilities for its panels much before it was mandated under the WEEE Directive. Eco-design in First Solar panels was not simply a result of making the producers responsible for their physical and financial aspects of their respective brand products. The other factors that played a role include: Dedicated and specialized recycling facilities Continuous and growing (eol) volumes of First Solar panel waste Use of critical material Customer satisfaction

22 Limitations: Lack of primary, consistent data (rely instead on appropriate proxies) Low to nil response from certain key stakeholders (government bodies, municipalities, PROs, etc.) IPR case solely restricted to First Solar Trade off between more horizontal research into multiple case studies vs. more in-depth research into one case study

23 Remaining questions Does it make sense for producers of products for which dedicated resources are readily available to move towards IPR? In case EPR is not the only motivating factor, are there other ways to encourage eco-design in products?

24 THANK YOU!