Employing benefit-sharing to motivate stakeholders’ efficient investment in waste photovoltaic module recycling

Abstract

Over the last two decades, China’s photovoltaic (PV) industry has developed rapidly, increasing attention to the growing generation of waste PV modules. Waste PV module recycling is an obvious choice to meet the resource demands of the PV industry. However, benefits coming from the implementation of waste PV module recycling are always uncertain and little literature focuses on the benefit-sharing among multi-stakeholder. In this study, we developed a benefit-sharing model and usethe internal rate of return (IRR) as theinvestment assessment indicator to clarify the benefits of core stakeholders in waste PV module recycling. The results indicated that the IRR of PV power station owner, waste PV processor, and PV module manufacturer is calculated as 7.36%, 4.21%, and 18.62%, respectively, showing an unequal distribution among stakeholders. And the government revenue from the tax is nearly 7 billion yuan. Therefore, we conducted the impact of price parameters on IRR and designed three feasible benefit-sharing scenarios in different price combinations and government intervention to motivate stakeholders’ efficient investment. The results also revealed that the Polluter Pays Principle (PPP) could likely apply to PV waste module management.