Solar panels installed in 2020 could supply 21% of solar silver by 2035

Solar panels installed in 2020 could supply up to 21% of the silver the industry needs to build new panels in 2035, according to research from Rystad Energy.

The squeeze behind the argument is familiar. Electric vehicles, solar, battery storage and bigger grids are driving up demand for copper, rare earths, silver and other materials, and the International Energy Agency expects transition-linked mineral demand to keep growing for decades. New mines, refineries and processing plants take years to build.

Battery recycling at plant scale

Reuters reports that the supply of batteries available for recycling should keep growing, now that the earliest large-scale EV batteries are reaching maturity.

In Europe, the forecasts are closer and more specific. Researchers estimate roughly 15% of lithium, nickel and manganese supply could come from recycled sources by 2030. Cobalt stands out. Researchers estimate around 25% of European cobalt supply could come from recycling by 2030, which suggests recycled material could become a mainstream input for that metal.

Redwood says the materials it recovers are an expanding domestic supply, one that can cut reliance on imports and on new mining. In Reuters' account, recycling is changing from a waste-management problem into a strategic industrial opportunity.

Silver and silicon come back out

Retired panels have mainly given recyclers glass and aluminum. Separating the valuable parts, the silver and silicon, has often been difficult or not worth the cost. Reuters reports that several recent technical advances are making solar-panel recycling more economic, letting recyclers extract silver and silicon more efficiently.

A laser-assisted process shown by researchers at the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO) recovered silicon at purity up to 99.998% and silver at 99.7%, with yields of about 97%. At the University of Newcastle in Australia, researchers recovered close to 100% of the silver from end-of-life solar panels. Their method relies on flotation techniques the mining industry already knows, and it can be scaled commercially.

According to Rystad Energy, recyclable materials from solar panels are worth around $2 billion today, and that total could reach roughly $80 billion by 2050. The estimate is based on how widely solar is being deployed worldwide and on the expected rise in materials prices. The consultancy's 2035 outlook shows that this value is spread unevenly across materials.

That spread matters to buyers. A 21% share suggests recycled silver could become a meaningful input for panel makers by 2035, while a 2% share suggests recycled copper would stay small next to mined supply. A materials planner can't treat "solar recycling" as one number. Each metal has its own forecast, and only some of them are big enough to change a sourcing plan.

A supply line with a 15-year lag

The detail most readers will skim past is the vintage. Rystad's 2035 shares come from recycling panels installed in 2020.

Solar manufacturers and the teams that buy their silver paste and polysilicon could start modeling recycled feedstock in long-range sourcing, with volumes linked to known installation records. For operators who own solar fleets or battery assets, retirement value could be worth tracking in decommissioning plans, since Rystad's valuation factors in an expected increase in materials prices.

Turbine blades and what to watch

Wind power is experiencing its own recycling breakthrough, according to Reuters. Most of a turbine can already be recycled, but the blades have long been the hard part.

One development could show whether solar recycling is becoming a dependable source of supply: whether laser-assisted separation or flotation moves from a published result to a contracted plant with stated throughput.