Based in Grenoble and Chambéry, in the heart of France’s leading energy-producing region, CEA LITEN (Innovation Laboratory for New Energy Technologies and Nanomaterials) is Europe’s leading research center dedicated entirely to the energy transition. LITEN’s Solar Technologies Department is involved in a wide range of topics, including :
– High-efficiency photovoltaics, with the development of c-Si and Tandem cells
– X-IPV integrated photovoltaics (mobility, space, buildings)
– Photovoltaic systems (large-scale power plants and distributed systems)
– Stationary storage for the energy mix
– Energy management from building to smart-city
– Multi-energy smart grids
– Circular economy with recycling and second life.
EVERPV project, led by CEA LITEN, gathers a consortium of 16 participants, from 8 countries, whose expertise ranges from solar PV materials and recycling processes (CEA, CSEM, ENEA, TEC), recyclers (ENVIE, 9TECH), process industries and materials suppliers (SGB, DTF, DPL, JBR), PV modules manufacturing (VAL), collecting and waste treatment organizations (SOREN, ERION), policy-making, business and training facilitators (SPE, UNITAR, BI). EVERPV is a 36-month project with a budget of 6 million euros.
EVERPV’s objective is to provide EU with efficient solutions for a sustainable treatment of end-of-life PV panels and recovery of high purity and high integrity materials. Based on the grinding of PV panels waste from the backside and/or the use of IR lamps heating, EVERPV will demonstrate two innovative technologies to delaminate the different layers of the PV panel. Combined with recycling processes, it will enable to recover glass with less than 1% impurities, encapsulant and backsheet polymers with a purity over 99%, and silver with a purity of 99%.
Besides, the project will cluster with other EU-funded consortia already addressing the recycling of silicon (e.g. PHOTORAMA) to provide with a global solution. The new delamination technologies will be respectively demonstrated at ENVIE recycling plant and at 9TECH to reach TRL7. The technology demonstrated during EVERPV project targets to process more than 3000 tons of solar panels per year, thus recovering enough raw materials recovered to produce more than 350 000 new panels per year by 2030. EVERPV will finally demonstrate the potential for reusability of recovered materials in several industrial value chains in particular in the PV industry. The project will lead a strategic analysis on the potential of new EoL panels circular value chains based on estimated PV waste generation together with environmental and societal impact assessments.
BENKEI’s Contribution
During the setting-up of this collaborative European EVER-PV project, Benkei provided support to CEA LITEN, the project coordinator. Benkei’s involvement included :
– Benkei was responsible for drafting the document submitted to the European Commission. Benkei collected and consolidated the information required from the various partners, and in particular took responsibility for writing the impact section of the document.
– As support to the CEA LITEN coordinator, Benkei was responsible for organizing and leading the meetings required to set up the project (consortium meetings, work package meetings, individual meetings with certain partners).
– Working closely with CEA LITEN, Benkei was involved in setting-up and fine-tuning the project budget. Benkei consolidated feedback from partners and took part in budget negotiations.