Renewable energy (RE) installations in India go back to the 1980s, when wind energy demonstration projects were first commissioned. One of RE’s key drivers was the accelerated depreciation tax credit, on the basis of which many entities set up captive wind farms. Then in the 2000s, a crop of modern, efficient solar installations emerged, their numbers growing exponentially in the subsequent decades to keep pace with the country’s 2030 RE targets.
The bulk of India’s RE installations have been set up in the last decade or so. In 2013–14, India’s solar power installed capacity stood at 2.82 GW; it is approximately 82 GW currently. Wind energy installed capacity has grown from 21 GW to approximately 46 GW in the same period. The expected lifespan of a solar photovoltaic or PV module is around 25–30 years, and that of a wind turbine is approximately 20 years, so the first generation of solar and wind assets in India is expected to reach its end-of-life (EOL) in the next eight to 10 years.
A considerable portion of this scrap will comprise solar PV waste
Solar PV waste (discarded panels and PV modules) is estimated to make up the majority of RE waste at its EOL. This is because solar corners the lion’s share of India’s overall installed RE capacity—approximately 43 percent of the total 190.5 GW as of March 2024. And this is set to increase substantially. The Central Electricity Authority (CEA) estimates that India will need 292 GW of solar to meet the 2030 target of 500 GW for its clean energy mix.
A recent study has estimated that, in India, approximately 100 kilo tonnes (kt) of waste has already been generated from the installed solar capacity (66.7 GW as of March 2023). This will increase six times over to approximately 600 kt by 2030 due to existing and new installations deployed between the financial years 2024–25 and 2030–31. Approximately 67 percent of this quantity will be generated in five states: Rajasthan, Gujarat, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu.
Managing the issue of solar waste
As it starts to accumulate in landfills, EOL solar assets will hold land resources captive, degrade the environment, compromise biodiversity, and add to our already sizeable waste management problem. Waste management, however, is only one of four aspects to consider.
Resource efficiency and reuse constitute the second. A sustainable future demands that we increase the efficiency and utility of the earth’s resources by recovering and repurposing material that can have a second innings. It also calls for the development of alternate mineral supply chains and innovation in technologies and processes for solar, much in the same way that lithium-ion battery alternatives, which are commercially viable and have lower negative externalities, are being actively sought. The third aspect is designing for circularity. This involves changing our approach to manufacturing RE products such that their materials are easier to recover and recycle at EOL. Done right, this could potentially help the informal sector as well as improve waste management, which currently plays a significant role in the collection and sorting of e-waste. Efficient recovery of materials due to proper waste management is one of the most important aspects of the circular economy, as it helps connect EOL waste to recycling.
The fourth aspect is geopolitical. If once-extracted critical minerals and other metals can be recycled from the RE waste streams and reintroduced into India’s RE sector, the supply chain resilience is likely to be enhanced and the country’s reliance on imports will reduce. Currently, approximately 90 percent of India’s solar capacity infrastructure is built with imports.
There are social, environmental, and geopolitical aspects to managing solar waste. And centring circularity in the RE ecosystem is a key step in addressing each of these.
What is a circular renewable energy economy?
A circular economy is an approach that makes production resource-efficient and decreases overconsumption, lengthens the life of materials and products, and reduces their entry into waste streams, thus improving recovery. Along with these, the approach aims to decrease negative environmental and social impacts across the value chain.
Extrapolated to the solar energy sector, a circular economy refers to a system of manufacturing, utilising, and recycling solar products in a similarly regenerative manner. Such a system would also reduce life-cycle emissions. In this way, a circular economy would foster a clean energy transition in the truest sense of the term.
While this article focuses on the solar sector, other RE technologies, especially wind energy, need to think through the challenges and opportunities presented by their waste streams.
A circular solar economy would subscribe to the following principles:
1. Design: Solar energy products should be designed in a way that optimises resource extraction for manufacturing, eliminates pollution, makes recovery of materials easier, minimises waste at EOL, and allows recycled material to re-enter the value chain. A paper draws attention to the effects of improved design efficiency of solar cells, which in one case has led to a 40–50 percent decline in the use of silver and silicon.
2. Maintain: Care should be taken to extend the lifetime of the product during storage, handling, and operation to prevent damage and slow degradation. Lifetime extension strategies include upgrade, repair, and second-life use.
3. Recycle, repurpose, refurbish: At its EOL, the product should slip seamlessly into waste processing cycles that assign the whole or parts of the product for reuse and recycling.
To understand how to build a circular solar energy system, we need to first understand how solar waste is generated. It emerges from two streams:
The manufacturing process: This includes modules and products that fail quality checks or are damaged during manufacturing and are subsequently discarded.
The project lifetime: This comprises modules damaged during transportation and handling; poor installation and maintenance; manufacturing defects that surface on the field; extreme weather events such as earthquakes and cyclones that can rip the panels apart and hailstorms that can cause cracks; and natural EOL, by which time the efficiency of the panels falls to below 80 percent of its optimum capacity. The degradation rate is also influenced by local geographical and climatic conditions.
The solar waste management ecosystem is still being developed, although the E-Waste (Management) Rules, 2022, discusses approaches to deal with solar cell and module waste through extended producer responsibility (EPR). This requires the module producer (manufacturer or importer) to take back solar waste and recycle it, but some quantum of this waste might end up in landfills or with the unorganised sector. India’s waste management policies and EPR regime for batteries are fairly developed, but approximately 95 percent lithium-ion batteries end up in landfills and only 5 percent reach the recycling and reuse stage. Thus, it’s very likely that solar waste too makes its way into landfills or the informal waste economy in the absence of circular economy approaches.
From problem to potential
Considering the large volumes of waste from solar plants expected in this decade, the ecosystem needs to start preparing to handle this, taking into account the time to develop and institutionalise the practices. A first step to develop solutions is not to view it solely as a waste management issue, but rather as an opportunity to harness resources. Metals contained in solar PV modules such as copper, silver, cadmium, and tellurium, for example, have a long life and can be reused multiple times for next-generation solar PVs or other applications. Efficient recovery will not only plug supply chain shortfalls for these metals but will also reduce the expenses incurred, and minimise associated environmental and social impacts due to mining of metals.
Two main issues are predominant. One, specialised facilities to recycle solar modules in India are few, and for reuse they are even fewer. Two, only a small quantum of solar waste, therefore, is currently taken back for recycling or material extraction. This approach is being undertaken by a handful of module producers like First Solar, which has a trial recycling facility alongside its manufacturing plant in Chennai. However, outside of a small number of company-run research and development (R&D) facilities to test the potential of recycling, the extraction of resources is not happening at scale.
Whom does the circular RE economy benefit?
Building a circular economy around solar has benefits for the government, industry, environment, and society.
1. Benefits to the government
The supply chain for critical minerals that are used in many RE technologies, such as lithium, graphite, nickel, manganese, cobalt, and others, including rare earth elements (REEs), is geographically concentrated in a few countries.
In 2022, Australia, Chile, and China together produced approximately 90 percent of lithium, whereas China processed approximately 65 percent, followed by Chile that processed approximately 30 percent of lithium globally. China, Mozambique, and Madagascar produced more than 90 percent of graphite, while China processed all of the graphite globally. Ninety percent REEs are produced by China, the US, and Australia together, whereas only China, Malaysia, and Estonia process all REEs.
The Indian government is keen to reduce its reliance on these imports and leverage deposits that have been discovered within India itself. The extraction and recovery of minerals from used renewables will enhance supplies.
These scenarios are, however, subject to how much usable material we succeed in extracting from used RE technologies. The efficiency of recycling processes will play a huge role in realising our goals to secure our material supply chains and reduce mineral supply requirements.
Resource efficiency has additional benefits in the climate change arena as well. Initiatives to build a circular economy and minimise waste will have the dual advantage of helping India achieve its nationally determined contribution (NDC), and adding heft to voluntary movements like Mission LiFE (Lifestyle for Environment), which promotes the preservation of the environment through lifestyle changes and the measured utilisation of resources.
2. Benefits to businesses
Solar panel companies will gain greater control over their supply chains and obtain a possible second revenue source by recycling waste and reselling it to manufacturers. The circular economy would generate additional business opportunities in reverse logistics through waste transportation, collection, and dismantling centres; metal and mineral extraction plants; and resale channels.
Businesses will also acquire the green credentials they need to meet benchmarks set by the business responsibility and sustainability reporting (BRSR) and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) frameworks, which will help them build a stronger case for financing. With a circular RE value chain, companies can prove that they are reducing waste streams, and that the waste generated during manufacturing and transportation is responsibly handled, processed, and reused.
3. Benefits to people
New businesses will give rise to new jobs, both in the formal economy, through recycling plants and repurposing facilities, and through the informal waste economy, where a steady set of work opportunities can be created for the agencies and individuals involved in it.
Distributed collection and segregation centres can recover easily extractable aluminium and copper parts, for example, and send the rest to specialised recycling plants, thereby supplying the recycling industry with the input materials it needs. The larger gain for society, however, will be waste management, where landfills will be saved the additional waste, and health hazards will be prevented. In addition, it will also prevent people from being relocated to accommodate mines.
4. Benefits to the environment
Recycling and reuse reduces the risk of toxic materials leaching out and degrading ecosystems and avoids the socio-ecological impacts of mining. Reducing the dependence on newly extracted materials and exploring, instead, alternate minerals for RE that are less damaging to the environment can also potentially reduce mining and avert its environmental consequences.
How can we institutionalise circularity?
Planning for circularity needs to factor in both resource efficiency and design for circularity along with EOL approaches. Here are some aspects that can help to develop and institutionalise circularity approaches.
1. Modular design
The design and manufacture of solar panels and other RE products should prioritise the optimal use of resources, and ensure that products can be easily dismantled, extracted, and recycled at EOL. This can help make recovery from EOL waste easier and efficient. For example, Europe’s WEEE directive encourages cooperation between producers and recyclers to promote product design in order to facilitate reuse, dismantling, and recovery.
2. Detailed labelling
Once manufactured, RE products should bear clear and comprehensive labels that disclose the materials they contain and specify instructions for handling during the product life cycle and at EOL. Calling out the material mix will alert bulk recyclers of the specific recycling processes and safety measures that those products warrant.
3. Standard operating protocols
RE technologies need to be stored, handled, and transported from manufacturer to project developer in a safe manner to avoid damage. Poor installation and maintenance practices on the field may claim their own casualties. All these operations should meet prescribed standard operating protocols to ensure product longevity so that an RE product lives out its full life.
4. Optimum EOL treatment
Selecting an appropriate EOL treatment for the product, depending on its condition and life stage, is critical. A host of possibilities could be considered: how to reuse the entire product, how to reuse components of the product, and, if the product is unusable, how to refurbish key parts. In solar PV, for example, in Europe (one of the most developed solar PV recycling markets), the most commonly used commercial recycling process manages to extract only approximately 24 percent of usable material as opposed to the current minimum target of 80 percent (by mass). More efficient recycling methods are being pursued, but they are still in development.
5. Reverse logistics
This is the final curve in the circular rubric. Efficient recovery will help bring EOL waste back to recycling and reduce landfilling and related issues. Furthermore, it is important to bring recycled materials back into the supply chain. This approach will help close the loop at the EOL for transition from a linear to circular economy.
Essentially, the circular economy demands that we begin upstream with the design—the product is built on a clear idea of how it will travel through the value chain—and develop processes along the way that minimise the loss of material, energy, money, and labour. As for installed solar infrastructure that has been manufactured through older technologies, efforts can be made only to map out appropriate EOL approaches, recycle the modules efficiently, send back what is usable to manufacturers, and safely dispose what cannot be recycled.
Approaches for scaling circularity
For circularity to work, it must be adopted universally and at scale. For this to happen, the needle must shift in the following areas:
1. Innovation
India’s installed solar capacity has been growing at a brisk pace, recording an approximate fourfold leap between 2018 and 2024. However, efforts to build a circular economy—whether in design, manufacturing, or managing EOL—have not kept up with the speed at which solar installations have been deployed.
Moreover, research has largely focused on creating new renewable energy products and improving the efficiency of existing ones, like the new bifacial panels that produce more energy than monofacial panels (because they absorb sunlight from both the sky and what is reflected off the ground). But innovations around circularity aspects have not advanced with the same speed and ingenuity.
2. Reverse logistics
Circularity cannot scale without an established mechanism for reverse logistics. Without a viable ecosystem for circularity, the EPR requirements will face challenges. Currently there are gaps in the system that delivers EOL waste to recycling units and returns extracted material for manufacturing. Closing these gaps will lead to better compliance with EPR rules, and secure safe storage and transportation so that the risk of further damage to decommissioned modules is reduced. An efficient reverse logistics system will incentivise recovery and recycling.
3. Innovation responsive policies
RE technology is changing rapidly and the metrics and processes designed for one generation of systems may be rendered obsolete by the next. The challenges with linking existing processes with up-and-coming technologies, aligning both with policy changes, and syncing them all with the workings of the informal sector—where most of the collection happens—are not trivial concerns. Policies need to be responsive to innovations in RE technologies and enable corresponding changes in the ecosystem. This consideration will make the ecosystem more responsive to the dynamic technological changes.
4. Technology and capacity building
A circular system, being a composite model of several parts, needs a clear understanding of how each part operates, and the ability to spot and address the gaps within the structure. Take India’s battery recycling market as an example. India has access to technologies and has been developing a battery reuse and recycling ecosystem. However, some gaps still exist. For example, India needs to develop technologies to manufacture new batteries from black mass, a material recovered after recycling batteries. Currently, black mass is exported because India lacks the infrastructure to use this recycled material. Chinks in the solar value chain must be similarly identified and mended.
5. Patient capital
Funding has to be secured for circularity. Though circular technologies may not generate headlines that highlight net carbon reductions, circularity’s wins come more gradually by reducing waste. Such a protracted business model will need different forms of funding, including patient capital.
The government can play a critical role
To centre circularity in the RE sector, it is essential to make it an active aspect of India’s energy transition in the government as well as in industrial, scientific, and social circles. The government is already working with the scientific community to gain a granular and localised understanding of the subject. Here are some additional steps it can consider:
- The government can define the metrics it plans to establish for circularity and allow stakeholders time to calibrate their manufacturing, logistics, installation, and recycling systems to the new rules.
- Regulations should set a minimum threshold for recoverable material, mandating that manufacturers recover a certain percentage of every solar panel produced after a given baseline year, say 2026 or 2027. A directive by the European Union, for example, stipulates that 85 percent of PV waste is to be recovered and 80 percent is to be prepared for reuse and recycling.
- Early adopters of emerging technologies who demonstrate a measurable and verifiable reduction in the quantum of waste their facilities produce could be rewarded. The reward could be a tapering fund that grants high initial incentives to risk takers.
- Rewards could similarly be extended to companies that comply with e-waste rules and those that take their EPR seriously.
- The government could sponsor innovation challenges that encourage start-ups and research labs to design solutions that can be field-tested with developers. Project installers who allow such start-ups to work with them and gather data can receive tax credits.
Building awareness can nudge public behaviour
In addition to government incentives, conversations need to be simultaneously facilitated in the public sphere. Grappling as they are with the environmental and health hazards of urban waste, people will be more amenable than ever to discussing RE waste management today.
A public-friendly communication strategy that raises awareness about the need to have renewables recycled and the opportunities it affords has the added impetus of garnering support for public initiatives on circularity. It may also nudge homeowner behaviour.
India has a growing grid-connected rooftop solar ecosystem, which is approximately 12 GW as of March 2024. Knowledge about circularity will encourage residential consumers, who are considering rooftop solar solutions for their homes, to demand information about whether and where those panels can be recycled after 20–25 years. A groundswell of such concerns may compel local solar rooftop developers to set up decentralised panel collection and recycling units, thereby creating smaller, concentric links to the value chain.
The solar industry’s path to circularity is bound to have obstacles, but inclusive conversations, far-sighted policies, and immediate action can help overcome them. Circularity calls for a partnership between several stakeholders, and not just between government and industry. The more businesses, policymakers, and citizens start to appreciate what such an economy can deliver, the more firmly and urgently they will put their collective weight behind it.
Without circularity, the pristine fields of solar installations that we envisage today will soon end up as mountains of decommissioned panels, laying waste to our efforts to decarbonise the atmosphere by polluting soil and water instead.
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