Comstock Metals receives permit for Nevada solar panel recycling facility

Comstock Metals LLC, a Silver Springs, Nevada-based solar panel recycler, has received its Written Determination Permit from the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection Bureau of Sustainable Materials Management (NDEP-BSMM) for the processing of end-of-life solar panels and photovoltaics for its industry-scale material recovery facility (MRF) in Silver Springs, Nevada.

Once operational, the company says the facility is projected to process more than 3 million panels per year from one continuous line, representing up to 100,000 tons of material processed annually. Comstock Metals received a similar notification of approval for the associated air quality control permit Jan. 5. These last two permits represent the complete scope of required regulatory approvals for commissioning the scale up of the facility.

According to Comstock, this facility integrates technologies for efficiently crushing, conditioning, extracting and recycling metal concentrates from photovoltaics.

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The company previously ordered and received deliveries for the facility’s equipment and says it remains on schedule to receive the rest of the equipment, as well as install, test and commission the facility during the first quarter of 2026.

“We appreciate BSMM’s collaborative engagement in issuing the first industry-scale Written Determination Permit for solar panel recycling, a key regulatory milestone that enables Nevada’s only zero-landfill, high-volume, end-of-life solar panel recycling solution serving the broader region,” Comstock Metals President Fortunato Villamagna says. “This authorization aligns with our original permitting timeline and reflects the effectiveness of our regulatory strategy, the strength of our relationships with regulators and the successful execution of a complex, first-of-its-kind permitting process.”

Many of the U.S. solar panels have been deployed in the southwestern U.S., primarily California, Arizona and Nevada, with decommissioning of these solar panels occurring now, accelerating supply and increasing the demand for environmentally responsible end-of-life solutions, Comstock says.

“Comstock Metals is setting the global standard in solar panel recycling by creating a scalable, reliable, efficient and optimized network of decommissioning, collecting, aggregating, storing and full-recovery processing—and ultimately refining—nodes designed and built for speed and scale,” Comstock CEO and Executive Chairman Corrado De Gasperis says. “Most of the industry is still getting their heads around the magnitude of inevitable end of life panel dilemma, measured in the billions of panels, while we deploy and deliver a full end of life solution.”