Abstract
PV system installations have rapidly been on the increase since the Japanese Feed in Tariff Act was enforced in 2012. This means that a large amount of PV panels will be become waste in 2030s as they reach their end-of-life (EoL) stage. However, maintenance vendors will exchange some of the panels with new ones before they reach their EoL stage. This scenario is estimated to generate two hundred tons of waste per year corresponding to 2MW in 2020 in Kyushu and considered to be no small amount. In order to promote a recycling scheme for the wasted panels, the Fukuoka PV Maintenance and Recycling Promoting Committee was established last year to initiate a take-back and recycling system. We are now developing the smart take-back support system that shares information among members in the Japan Waste Network through the Cloud and aims to manage collection efficiently using IoT. We also intend to perform social experiments on this take-back and recycling system for discarded panels in order to create optimal efficiency. Because sustainability is the most crucial aspect of the take-back system and relies upon a self-sustaining committee, we have also started to develop unique technology to uphold this self-sustaining committee.
