Waste Management | Solid Waste Management | Opportunities
India's solar waste is expected to reach 600 kilotonnes by 2030, with 67% coming from five states: Rajasthan, Gujarat, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu. The waste will include critical minerals like silicon, silver, cadmium, and tellurium. There is an opportunity for India to develop a circular solar industry and establish robust recycling mechanisms to manage this growing waste stream.
NotesWhile at EAI we have been getting a good number of enquiries for solar panel recycling in the last few months, we feel it could be a bit too early for large volumes to happen - solar panels are robust fellows, yielding excellent power for 25 long years. Given that large scale solar development started happening around 2015, one can expect numbers for solar panel recycling to start piling up around 2030.
Presently, some portion of solar panels that get damaged during the project lifetime could come to the recycling market, but our estimates suggest that this might not be significant - once again, the timeline for much faster growth for this segment is around 2030.
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