Solar Panel Recycling Market Trends

Growth Drivers:

• Expanding solar panel installations in several emerging economies: Emerging markets such as Africa, Southeast Africa, and Latin America are rapidly adopting solar energy due to rising energy demands and increasing availability of solar panels at low costs. However, this has opened new avenues for key players to develop sufficient solar panel recycling infrastructure and facilities. Moreover, several international agencies are providing funding for renewable energy programs with built-in recycling mandates. For instance, India has established a system for extended producer responsibility (EPR) for e-waste and has plans to achieve 80% recycling by 2028-29.
• Increasing investments in R&D activities: Companies in the solar panel recycling market are collaborating with governments and recycling firms to provide advanced recycling networks and enhance their product base. For instance, in August 2024, renewable service provider RNWBL partnered with US-based PV recycling firm Solarcycle to recycle and reuse RNWBL’s solar panels. Through this partnership, the company aims to recycle more than 200,000 solar panels and offer a comprehensive end-to-end solution for customers.

 Challenges

• Expensive recycling process: Solar panels contain a mix of materials such as glass, metals, and other rare elements that require specialized equipment to separate these, which can be expensive to maintain. In addition, the prices of these raw materials recovered from solar panels often fetch lower prices than the production costs. Besides this, the recycling process requires skilled labor which is expensive to acquire. This is expected to hamper overall solar panel recycling market expansion.
• Inconsistent regulations and insufficient e-waste laws: Policies governing solar panel disposal and recycling often vary across the globe. This can lead to the non-uniform adoption of solar panels in the coming years. Moreover, solar panels are not categorized as e-waste, exempting them from stricter disposal mandates.