GeT Metal Group Develops Integrated Solar Panel Recycling Project To Recover Aluminium Copper Glass And Silver

As South Africa’s renewable energy sector expands at an unprecedented pace, local industrial pioneer GeT Metal Group is developing a pathway to address an emerging environmental and industrial challenge: the management of defective, damaged and end-of-life solar photovoltaic (PV) modules.

Seeking to position itself at the forefront of the continent's green transition, the company is developing an integrated solar panel recycling and advanced resource recovery project, to create future industrial-scale capability.

This milestone project is uniquely designed to extract value from virtually every major material stream contained within PV modules, turning a looming waste management liability into a sustainable resource opportunity for South Africa.

A Critical Solution For A Growing Green Footprint

The initiative arrives at a pivotal juncture.

According to industry insights from GreenCape, South Africa’s large-scale solar PV installed capacity is forecast to skyrocket from approximately 2.36 GW in 2023 to more than 11.35 GW by 2028, driven heavily by public and private sector investments.

Solar modules typically have an operational lifespan of 25 to 30 years.

With the first wave of public sector Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (REIPPPP) projects hitting decommissioning milestones from around 2033, South Africa will eventually generate millions of end-of-life solar modules annually.

"Establishing industrial recovery capacity ahead of this wave of future waste is critical if South Africa is to avoid repeating the waste management challenges experienced in other technology sectors," says Andrew Bishop, Director at GeT Metal Group.

"Solar panels should no longer be viewed as future waste liabilities but rather as future urban mines containing valuable recoverable resources including aluminium, copper, silver, glass, silica and other metallic materials. If successful, this project will position South Africa at the forefront of next-generation photovoltaic recycling."

Compounding this urgency is a strict regulatory landscape.

South African e-waste regulations prohibit the disposal of solar PV waste in landfills.

Under Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) regulations, developers, importers and brand owners are legally required to ensure that modules are processed by accredited, licensed facilities.

Advanced Recovery Technology Moving Beyond Conventional Recycling

While standard global recycling practices often focus mainly on easily accessible aluminium frames and copper cabling, GeT Metal Group has been developing a process for comprehensive multi-stream recovery from end-of-life solar modules.

This process combines engineered material liberation with mechanical beneficiation and advanced separation technologies, enabling the recovery of multiple material streams beyond conventional frame-and-cable recycling.

“This is no longer conventional recycling,” notes Andrew Bishop, Director at GeT Metal Group.

“This is advanced resource recovery. At the centre of the process under development is an engineered material liberation system designed to separate bonded photovoltaic materials into cleaner material fractions for potential downstream recovery. By minimising contamination between recovered streams, the process improves downstream recovery efficiency and enables the commercial recovery of aluminium, copper, glass, silica-rich materials and metallic concentrates.”

To close the final recovery gap, GeT Metal Group is evaluating the next phase of its solar panel recovery process, which will include the further development of silver recovery from photovoltaic cell material.

Laboratory and pilot-scale test work has produced encouraging results, and the group is assessing the equipment, process requirements and implementation pathway for potential industrial-scale recovery.

True In-House Circularity

What truly sets GeT Metal Group apart is its ability to create internal circularity, reintroducing recovered materials directly into productive manufacturing processes across its own industrial ecosystem.

Aluminium:

Reclaimed aluminium is supplied directly to GeT Alloys, the group’s aluminium foundry operations based in Parow and Germiston, where it serves as feedstock for the production of aluminium ingots.

Steel:

Steel components from solar mounting systems, such as brackets, fasteners and structural elements, are routed to GeT Steel, the group’s steel foundry in Atlantis, where they are transformed into steel billets for local and export markets.

"By relying on internal downstream processing rather than external entities, we dramatically improve the economics of solar recycling while reducing the country's reliance on virgin raw materials," Bishop adds.

"By combining advanced resource recovery with in-house manufacturing capability, we can achieve a level of circularity that is rarely seen within the photovoltaic recycling sector globally."

Mining The Urban Landscape

GreenCape highlights that whilst solar waste volumes remain modest in the short term, the long-term horizon from the 2040s onwards demands massive material recovery solutions.

"The research from GreenCape indicates that annual end-of-life solar panel volumes could eventually reach millions of modules per year, creating a substantial future market for advanced recovery technologies and specialised recycling infrastructure," explains Bishop.

"As solar deployment accelerates across the continent, the ability to recover critical materials from end-of-life renewable energy infrastructure may become one of the defining industrial opportunities of the circular economy transition."

For more information, please visit https://www.getmetalgroup.co.za.