Renewables

MMR plans Solar Panel Recycling plant in Coachella Valley

June 27, 2023

Solar panels often have a 25-to-30-year life cycle. Once discarded in landfills, they can leak toxic metal materials such as lead, selenium and cadmium

EnergyTech Staff

Mycrogrid Materials Recycling (MMR) is announced plans to create perhaps the first solar panel recycling facility in the Southwest.

MMR, located in Coachella Valley, Southern California, will be designed with the help of a solar installation company, Renova Energy, which is also anticipated to be among the first companies to supply panels to be recycled at the facility. The facility would serve as a point to recycle end-of-life solar panels from California and Arizona.

MMR will provide recycling services for solar essential materials, including photovoltaic modules, racking and railing, and ultimately battery storage equipment. The facility will help ease disassembling and recovery process from a photovoltaic panel, 95 percent of which is made of recyclable materials.

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More than 90 percent of discarded solar panels end up in landfills and it is anticipated that the retired panels will cover approximately 3,000 football fields by 2030. MMR breaks down solar essential materials for reuse in new products through a safe, advanced and environmentally friendly process, which keeps solar energy a truly sustainable solution.

According to the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory, less than 10 percent of the country’s decommissioned panels are recycled. The remaining 90 percent of used panels often end up in landfills, according to NREL.

Solar panels often have a 25-to-30-year life cycle. Once discarded in landfills, they can leak toxic metal materials such as lead, selenium and cadmium.

About the Author

EnergyTech Staff

Rod Walton is senior editor for EnergyTech.com. He has spent 14 years covering the energy industry as a newspaper and trade journalist.

Walton formerly was energy writer and business editor at the Tulsa World. Later, he spent six years covering the electricity power sector for Pennwell and Clarion Events. He joined Endeavor and EnergyTech in November 2021.

He can be reached at [email protected].

EnergyTech is focused on the mission critical and large-scale energy users and their sustainability and resiliency goals. These include the commercial and industrial sectors, as well as the military, universities, data centers and microgrids.

Many large-scale energy users such as Fortune 500 companies, and mission-critical users such as military bases, universities, healthcare facilities, public safety and data centers, shifting their energy priorities to reach net-zero carbon goals within the coming decades. These include plans for renewable energy power purchase agreements, but also on-site resiliency projects such as microgrids, combined heat and power, rooftop solar, energy storage, digitalization and building efficiency upgrades.