Recycling solution firm Comstock Metals and its parent company, Comstock, have started operations at its solar panel recycling facility in Silver Springs, Nevada.
The facility is now running continuously, a little bit over a month after the company said it had fully integrated and tested its solar panel recycling system. At the time, Comstock said that all major processing stages had been connected and successfully operated, and that testing of the facility’s individual unit operations had been completed.
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Comstock added that it will now ramp up its production platform to meet the increasingly higher customer volume demands. When the project secured a lease for the facility in Nevada in 2024, it was announced that the facility would be able to process up to 100,000 tonnes of decommissioned solar PV modules per year once fully ramped up.
According to the company, the shift to a non-stop production ensures an efficient, high-volume, zero-landfill solution that eliminates disposal-related environmental liabilities for its utility-scale solar customers who would receive a certification validating the end-of-life regulatory obligations of the solar panels recycled.
“Following dedicated work preparation with our production supervisors and operating staff across the four shift teams, we have now successfully graduated to continuous operations,” said Fortunato Villamagna, President of Comstock Metals.
The Nevada solar panel recycling facility will eventually be joined by another Comstock facility in Ohio. In June of this year, the company said it would establish a solar panel recycling plant, production facility and logistics hub in Cambridge, Ohio. The expansion is aimed at scaling up the company’s operations, reducing logistics costs and improving services to its growing Midwest and Eastern customer base.
A third facility in Hanford, California is also underway. In February of this year, Comstock received certification from the California Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) to recycle universal waste and process PV modules at its California facility. This is planned to function as a collection and pre-processing hub before sending materials to the Nevada facility for final recovery.
Corrado De Gasperis, CEO of Comstock, said: “We have methodically developed, deployed, tested and are now continuously operating. We believe the technical implementation hurdles and uncertainties related to the first-time scaled deployment of our proprietary Solar Panel Recycling Production system have now been overcome. With demonstrable continuous production, our focus now turns to volume ramp.
The 45th edition of PV Tech Power takes an in-depth look at whether the PV industry is ready for the coming wave of decommissioning and recycling, examining the development and prospects of solar PV recycling markets worldwide.
