Insights into material recovery, revenue, and global warming potential of India’s end-of-life photovoltaic installations reveals the urgent need for blockchain-based solar passports

Abstract

Growing photovoltaic (PV) panel waste is creating numerous environmental problems and an unfamiliar opportunity to add value and explore new business options in line with circular economy practices. As an immediate action, countries struggling with massive amounts of PV waste started exploring end-of-life management options, inventory analysis for PV waste, regulatory measures to handle, and asset monetization solutions for commissioning/decommissioning solar PV systems. Nevertheless, these actions have not been decisively implemented in many countries and have thus remained unfulfilled policy aspirations. In the context of India, it is worth noting that the country has established a set of industrial solid waste rules that are fairly comprehensive; however, they do not encompass the issue of PV waste. Hence, this study aims to understand India’s current stand on PV waste and provide a holistic solution for effective PV waste management in the long run. For this, a comprehensive look into India’s grid-connected PV plants was done to provide insights on the PV waste inventory potential, material recovery potential under various recycling approaches, possible revenues earned by selling recovered resources in the marketplace, and global warming potential for treated PV waste. Later, a survey-based discussion was done highlighting the reasons for uncertainties and potential pitfalls with installed solar inventory data considering ground reality situations. Lastly, based on the observed results and associated uncertainties, this study proposes the blockchain-based solar passports framework with a case illustrating the implementation as an urgent need in India to effectively monetize solar PV plant assets.