Our guest is Brett Henderson, co-founder and CEO of https://solarpanelrecycling.com/, or SPR. The company owns and operates plants in North Carolina, Georgia, and Texas, with a fourth opening in California this year, each built to run about a million panels a year and to scale to 3 million within six months when needed. SPR is a https://seia.org/-approved national recycler and partnered with SEIA on the https://solarpanelrecycling.com/2025/02/solarpanelrecycling-com-and-seia-launch-pioneering-residential-solar-recycling-initiative-in-north-carolina/ in the country. Brett came to solar after 18 years in electronics recycling at https://powerhouserecycling.com/, SPR's parent company, and the business started in 2018 with a call from a longtime utility client that had 10,000 panels coming out of a power plant and nowhere to send them. Brett is blunt about the economics: recycling a panel is a negative value proposition, because a panel is mostly glass and glass is cheap. What SPR sells is risk mitigation. Federal rules treat an end-of-life panel as hazardous until testing proves otherwise, most owners have no idea what is inside the modules they bought, and a utility loading thousands of them onto trucks takes on generator liability and Department of Transportation exposure. Aluminum and silver recovery subsidizes the rest. That cost has fallen 42% in 36 months at SPR, driven by rebuilt separation lines and steadier volume rather than any subsidy, and scale is what opens the end markets.

Join JPI's upcoming seminar focusing on upcoming regulations, legal challenges, and practical measures related to solar panel disposal and recycling.

The Solar Panel Recycling Market is projected to grow from $384.4 million in 2025 to $548 million by 2030, driven by rising decommissioned panel waste and stricter environmental regulations.

The solar panel recycling market is expected to grow significantly, reaching $1.12 billion by 2030, propelled by increasing adoption and environmental regulations.

Comstock Metals LLC is the first facility to achieve R2V3 and RIOS certifications in solar panel recycling, pioneering sustainable solutions.