Rosi has raised more than €20 million in a Series B funding round to scale up its photovoltaic module recycling operations and build a new 10,000 tonne per year factory in Teruel, Spain. The company uses pyrolysis-based technology to recover high-purity materials, including silver, silicon, copper, aluminum and glass, from discarded solar panels.
Rosi, a French cleantech company specializing in the recycling of waste PV modules, has secured over €20 million in financing to accelerate its next phase of growth. The financing will support the commissioning of a new plant in Teruel, Spain, which will have a processing capacity of 10,000 tonnes per year.
The Series B round attracted new international investors in addition to existing shareholders, including InnoEnergy, CMA CGM, the European Innovation Council (EIC) and Spanish company G3T. Finadvice, a Zurich-based corporate finance consultancy specializing in deep tech, acted as a strategic financial advisor and also participated as an investor, together with family offices from Switzerland and Poland.
Through its Inspire-PV project, supported by the European Executive Agency for Climate, Infrastructure and Environment (CINEA) under the European Innovation Fund, Rosi aims to accelerate the industrial deployment of its recycling solutions for PV modules. The company says it is using the experience gained at Rosi Alpes, its first industrial plant, to support the scale-up of the new plant in Teruel.
“This new plant will mark an important milestone in the industrialization of photovoltaic recycling, with an integrated and highly automated line designed for large-scale deployment,” the company said. The plant will produce high-purity secondary raw materials including silver, silicon, copper, aluminum and glass.
According to Rosi, once the preparatory studies have been completed, the factory will enter the construction phase once the technical specifications have been finalized and the necessary permits have been obtained.
Rosi already operates Rosi Alpes in France and was one of six industrial operators selected in a national tender led by Soren, France’s approved body for the collection and treatment of waste PV modules, to expand recycling capacity. In addition to Rosi, Envie 2E, Galloo, RVE and First Solar were selected, with facilities across mainland France and overseas territories. Together, the operators are expected to process more than 45,000 tons of PV modules per year.
Outside France, Rosi is also active in the United Kingdom, Germany and Switzerland in collaboration with Sens eRecycling.
Rosi’s recycling technology is based on a pyrolysis process that separates the different materials in PV modules. Pyrolysis is a thermal decomposition process performed in the absence of oxygen and widely used in industry to break down organic materials and recover valuable constituents.
“Silver represents less than 0.1% of a solar panel, but represents a significant portion of its value,” said Yun Luo, co-founder and president of Rosi Solar. “The same applies, to a lesser extent, to silicon, copper and high-purity glass.”
The company has developed a low-intensity thermal and chemical treatment process that enables the recovery of high-value metals and materials, as well as a patented process for the reintegration of silicon into industrial applications. With support from the French Agency for the Environment and Energy Management (Ademe) for proof-of-concept validation, Rosi has also focused on purifying silicon recovered from wafer cutting waste.
In 2019, Rosi developed a second extraction project together with Veolia, again in the proof-of-concept phase and co-financed by Ademe to develop an industrial prototype. The company’s customers include potential users of recovered materials, especially in the chemical industry.
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