SolarWorld Industries now offers PV recycling services

The SolarWorld Group expands its solar module recycling program to include the U.S. market. and now offers customers the opportunity to return used and end-of-life solar modules. The company uses the experience gained in Germany, where recycling skills have been developed over the recent years.

The SolarWorld Group expands its solar module recycling program to include the U.S. market. The California-based subsidiary SolarWorld Industries America now offers customers the opportunity to return used and end-of-life solar modules. The company uses the experience gained in Germany, where recycling skills have been developed over the recent years.


SolarWorld Industries America in Camarillo will accept any crystalline solar module, regardless of the manufacturer, cell shape or size, for recycling. Newly developed technologies enable the company to recycle materials that have so far not been economically usable. The process is particularly effective with older modules that used thicker cells, consisting of two or even three times as much silicon compared to today's state-of-the-art products.

"The contribution to the environment is extraordinary," says Raju Yenamandra, Sales Manager America. "Although SolarWorld AG gives a 25 year power warranty, many customers in the U.S. raised the question, prior to installing a solar system, how they will dispose of used solar modules."

With recycling, the SolarWorld Group brings the value chain full circle - from silicon and wafer production, through the manufacture of solar cells and modules to recycling. To understand how the recycling process works, the frame is first separated from the module, the cells are removed from the laminate and treated in an etching process resulting in clean wafers, enabling them to be used in the production of new cells and modules.

The SolarWorld Group is the first major solar company to successfully develop and adopt module recycling in their production process. With this capability now available to the U.S. market, it is the foremost solar company to make good use of unwanted modules in a truly environmentally compatible way, further evidence of the technological innovation that makes SolarWorld AG a world leader in the solar industry.

About SolarWorld AG: The SolarWorld Group is among the three largest solar power companies in the world. The group is dedicated exclusively to the core business of solar energy combining all stages of the solar value chain from the raw material silicon to turn-key solar power plants. The company operates production facilities in Germany, Sweden and the USA. In the United States SolarWorld AG is the leading producer and provider of solar power technology. In addition sales offices operate in South Africa and Asia completing the international alignment of the group. The responsibility of these offices includes the sale of rural solar power solutions that can make an important contribution to the sustainable economic development of the southern hemisphere.
In Freiberg in Saxony the group operates one of the world's most advanced integrated solar production facilities where the SolarWorld Group turns solar grade silicon into high quality solar wafers, solar cells and solar modules. SolarWorld AG offers a broad and diverse range of products from modules for grid-coupled and grid-independent power generation all the way to a whole class of complete solar power systems for decentralized and centralized electricity generation. After the IPO at the end of 1999 the company developed within a few years from a solar trading house to a fully integrated solar technology group increasing its workforce to more than 1,300 people by the beginning of July 2006. SolarWorld AG is listed at the stock exchange in the technology index TecDAX and in the Dow Jones STOXX 600 as well as in the international MSCI index among others.


Contact:
Tina Nickerson
SolarWorld Industries America
4650 Adohr Lane, Camarillo, CA 93012
Phone 805-388-6519 / www.solarworld-usa.com / tina.nickerson@solarworld-usa.com

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