Researchers model 1,708 pathways for global PV waste recycling

A group of international researchers has built a large model looking at how the world should handle solar panel waste as panels reach the end of their life. The study ran 1,708 scenarios covering 32 regions, different recycling technologies, ways of trading waste across borders, and subsidy programs, to see which approaches save the most money and cut the most greenhouse gas emissions.

The findings project that global solar panel waste could reach 297 million to 402 million metric tons by 2060, with China and other middle-income regions becoming major sources of that waste after 2040. Recycling this waste is not expected to become profitable on its own for more than a decade. The researchers also found a twist: rising prices for materials like silicon, silver, copper, and aluminum make recycling more valuable, but the same price rises can make new solar installations more expensive, which slows solar growth and means less waste to recycle later.

The most cost-effective and climate-friendly approach, according to the model, combines local recycling know-how with shipping waste to regions best equipped to process it — potentially cutting billions of tons of carbon emissions and generating hundreds of billions of dollars in net benefits by 2060. But this approach also risks concentrating the financial and technological gains in a handful of wealthier, more advanced regions. The researchers suggest that subsidies which start generous and shrink over time, rather than staying flat, could spread those benefits more evenly without costing governments as much. This is early-stage modeling rather than a program homeowners can access directly, but it points to how solar panel recycling costs and benefits may shift over the coming decades.