Solar power is in its heyday, with installations growing rapidly around the world as costs drop. Recent studies have suggested that photovoltaics could be the dominant power source by 2050.
Those shiny sun-harnessing panels have a dark side right now though. They are slated to become a major waste problem at the end of their lives. Anywhere from 297 to 402 million tonnes of solar panels will be discarded by 2060.
But all that PV waste could deliver almost $1 trillion in economic benefits if recycled properly, according to a new study published in Nature. And with international cooperation and foresight, these benefits could be distributed globally, writes the international team from China and Sweden.
“Effectively recycling [end-of-life] PV modules is therefore not only an environmental imperative but also a strategic necessity to secure material supply chains for future PV deployment and sustain global decarbonization goals,” they write.
Right now when solar panels become ineffective or break, they typically end up in landfills. There, they can leach toxic heavy metals such as lead and cadmium into soils and groundwater systems.
Solar modules also contain valuable materials such as silicon, silver, copper, and tellurium, which could be reused to make new panels. Silicon and silver are the most valuable metals in PV panels. But today’s commercial recycling technologies typically cannot recover either at sufficient purity to justify the cost of recycling. And there simply aren’t enough industrial-scale recycling operations in place today.
Veolia runs PV recycling facilities in France and Michigan. China, which is the world’s biggest PV producer, has a directive for manufacturers to take responsibility for collecting and treating end-of-life panels. Many Chinese solar PV manufacturers now have pilot recycling projects.
“The global landscape is far from uniform, characterized by an uneven distribution of recycling capabilities,” the authors write. High- and middle-income regions such as the EU, the United States, China, Japan and South Korea have the capacity to recycle most of the world’s solar panels. Meanwhile, low-income regions lack the expertise and capacity for recycling so they rely on outsourced recycling.
So the researchers created a computer model that examined 1,708 recycling scenarios across 32 global regions. They took into account recycling technologies, material prices, international trade and subsidy policies. They found that combining region-specific recycling technologies with outsourced recycling strategies gives the highest benefits. It would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 3.32 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent. And it would generate a net benefit of around US $530 to over 935 billion by 2060.
But these benefits would concentrate in upper-middle-income regions with advanced technologies. One strategy that would help make recycling more equitable is a declining subsidy model, the researchers found. This approach gradually reduces financial support as recycling becomes commercially viable.
International cooperation mechanisms, such as the Paris Agreement, should also prioritize technology transfer and targeted funding to develop recycling capacity in low-income regions, they write.
“We suggest that regionally adapted recycling strategies and international cooperation, with a focus on technology transfer and funding for recycling capacity in low-income regions, provide effective ways to achieve equitable and scalable PV waste circularity,” the team writes.
Source: Chen Wang et al. Towards an equitable future of global photovoltaic waste recycling. Nature, 2026.
Image: AI-generated / by Magnific