October 4, 2010
Keywords: Local government Reduce / Reuse / Recycle Renewable Energy
Japan's Kitakyushu City and the Kitakyushu Foundation for the Advancement of Industry, Science and Technology (FAIS) announced on July 7, 2010, that they would launch a research project to establish a wide-area recycling system for various types of photovoltaic (PV) modules. With the increasing use of PV power generation systems, the project was commissioned by the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) as the first project of its kind in Japan to cope with the future problem of the disposal of end-of-life PV modules.
As the central agency in the project scheduled from July 2010 through March 2015, FAIS works in collaboration with Kitakyushu City, Showa Shell Sekiyu K.K., Shinryo Corp., Mizuho Information & Research Institute, Inc., and the University of Kitakyushu.
The project team intends to develop and establish a recycling technology applicable to various types of PV modules with different structures and materials, aiming to design a pilot plant that can recycle PV modules at a low cost of five yen per watt when processing 200 megawatts of them per year.
With an assumption of having a recycling center in Kitakyushu City to recycle end-of-life PV modules discharged from households in the Kyushu and Chugoku regions, the project team will discuss methods to collect waste PV modules from households including locations of local disposal stations, and propose necessary legislation and deregulation on waste disposal and individual recycling to the national government.
Posted: 2010/10/04 06:00:15 AM