AJ Caesar ’27, Electrical and Computer Engineering

AJ Caesar ’27

Major

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Project Title

Analysis of Solar Recycling Feasibility Via Constrained Optimization in the Continental United States

By 2035 the United States will retire more than 1 million tons of aged photovoltaic solar panels (PVs) annually. These PVs contain precious metals like silver as well as toxic metals like lead that make them dangerous in landfills, but a recycling process called Full Recovery End of Life Photovoltaic (FRELP) recycling enables PVs to be recycled with 90% material recovery rates. PV recycling via FRELP could help create a circular economy, as the National Renewable Energy Laboratory projects that by 2035 retired panels could provide 30% of the silver and aluminum needed to produce new panels in the United States. However, the economic and environmental consequences of industrial PV recycling in the United States are yet to be accurately forecasted. To tackle this challenge, I created a cost-minimizing optimization problem that minimizes the financial cost of transporting PV waste and operating PV recycling facilities. I used geographic information of solar panel installations to forecast hotspots of PV waste and solved the optimization model to determine the ideal number and locations of PV recycling facilities. My analyses showed that PV recycling via FRELP could be financially profitable as well as environmentally beneficial in the United States.