AGC, Inc. (Tokyo) has initiated a collaboration with NPC Inc. to promote the recycling of solar-panel cover glass. Aiming to recycle several thousand tons of solar panels annually by 2030, AGC is partnering with various companies to establish a collection system for cover glass. Through this collaboration, AGC has developed a new scheme to horizontally recycle cover glass—separated using NPC’s solar panel recycling equipment—into architectural flat glass.
The useful life of solar panels is expected to be 20 to 30 years, and it is estimated to face tens of thousands of tons of solar-panel waste annually in Japan in the latter half of the 2030s. Horizontal recycling of solar panel cover glass is a key initiative toward realizing a sustainable circular society. However, separating the cover glass and improving its quality to meet recycling standards has had both technical and economic challenges.
AGC has confirmed that the combination of NPC’s patented Hot Knife glass separation method and Brush Scraping method can effectively remove residual adhesive materials to meet AGC’s stringent quality standards. The Hot Knife Separation Method uses a heated special blade to separate the glass from the cell sheet containing metal without breaking the glass. The Brush Scraping method removes residual EVA from separated glass using a specialized rotating brush.
This partnership enables recyclers to adopt NPC’s equipment and sell high-quality recycled glass to AGC. In establishing this recycling scheme, AGC has provided advice on equipment specifications and supported the development of a logistics network to facilitate efficient cullet collection. In September 2025, AGC successfully used 20 tons of cullet processed by this method as part of the raw materials to manufacture figured glass at its Yokohama Technical Center. This marks the introduction of a new horizontal recycling method for solar panel cover glass, in addition to existing pyrolysis and high-pressure water jet technologies.