ROSI – ENABLING A TRULY SUSTAINABLE SOLAR INDUSTRY

ROSI brings innovative technologies where they matter to transform the industry: competitive, scalable and sustainable. The company targets at changing the industry in cooperation with all partners aiming in the same direction: less impact, more value.

Interview with Damien Letort, Commercial Manager at ROSI.

A brief description of the company and its activities.

Damien Letort: ROSI is a company specializing in Solar Panel recycling. We have developed a unique, patented process to recycle Solar panel at the End of Life. 

The best advantage of our technology is that it enables to recover the different types of materials composing the solar panels, while keeping a very high quality. It brings efficiency and viability to a market of solar panel recycling who is slowed by a lack of technical possibilities.

We notably recover Aluminum, Glass, Copper, Silicon and Silver. Those two last elements are the main focus for us, as they represent combined more than half of the economic value of the solar panel.

Installation of solar panels in the world has increased so drastically that we think that it is urgent to keep on installing recycling plant like ours, in order to be able to face the demand in the coming years, and avoid landfilling or shredding.

What are the main areas of activity of the company?

D.L: ROSI is a company which can recycle solar panel at the end of file, and waste of production of solar panels.

We have a recycling plant in France, with 3 000 tons recycling capacity per year (50% of the 2023 French market).

What’s the news about new products/services?

D.L: Our technology and process is brand new and unique, it does not exist anywhere else in the world. It is a major hyphen between ecology, as it makes save a lot of CO2 to our clients, and economics as our process makes recycling solar panel economically rewarding.

We offer services of direct recycling to owners sending us the solar panel at the end of life. We are also keen on working with new partners to expand internationally and answer the numerous solicitations, as fast as we can reasonably go. Last week, we have announced a big partnership with AGC, a world leader in glass manufacturing, who will buy all of our glass cullet production to make new float glass.

What are the ranges of products/services?

D.L: We offer recycling services and technology products.

What is the state of the market where you are currently active and market trends?

D.L: The market of solar panel at the end of life is very particular, some month we have few volumes coming in, some month we are asked by client to treat 2 or 3 times our annual capacities. We took this opportunity to develop and strengthen relations with logistical partners, in order to have the best quality offer for our clients. However, we can see that the volumes of solar panel to treat is increasing exponentially from years to years, and that the requirement of a high quality recycling is taking more and more space in our client’s needs. We see it has a great opportunity for our business!

Regarding the secondary raw materials that we sell, all of our clients are very interested in buying it, as it is recycled secondary raw materials that they can directly use in their industrial process. It makes them saves big amounts of CO2 emissions and save money.  

What estimations do you have for the rest of 2024?

D.L: Today we focus on finishing the industrialization phase of our plant in France. Going up into the TRL scale is very challenging, it took us more than three years to reach industrialization of our equipment’s. It has been possible thanks to the exceptional reactivity and competencies of our teams.

We also focus on our international development: we are currently building a new site in Spain and Germany, and are in numerous discussions to expand in news countries: Japan, US, Australia, Italy etc.