Relevance: GS-2: Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation, environmental impact assessment; Infrastructure: Energy.

Key Phrases: IRENA, Waste management, solar photovoltaic, End-of-life products, Recycling, Circular Economy, Recovery facility, extended producer responsibility.

Why in News?

• The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) last December estimated that the global photovoltaic waste will touch 78 million tonnes by 2050, with India expected to be one of the top five photovoltaic-waste creators.

Highlights:

• While India ramps up its solar power installation, it does not yet have a firm policy on managing waste that results from used solar panels or from the manufacturing process.
  • India has set a target of producing 100 GW of solar energy by 2022. (1GW= 1000 Mega Watt)
  • The cumulative capacity of grid-connected solar photovoltaic (PV) installations is around 40 GW and of the current capacity, about 35.6 GW, is generated from ground-mounted plants and 4.4 GW from rooftop solar.
  • Solar waste — the electronic waste generated by discarded solar panels — is sold as scrap in the country.
• Solar panels have an estimated life of 25 years, and given that India’s solar manufacturing industry took off around 2010 most of the installed systems were new and early in their calendar life cycle and therefore unlikely to generate a large quantity of solar waste.
• That, however, is only partially accurate, according to the Council for Energy, Environment and Water, a Delhi based think-tank; End-of-life was only one of the possible waste streams for PV modules.
  • There are several other stages where modules could get damaged and were discarded, especially during transportation and installation.
  • Additionally, modules could develop defects during the plant operations and be discarded even before their scheduled life span.
• In the CEEW’s reckoning, PV modules had so far likely generated a cumulative waste of nearly 285,000 tonnes, as of FY21, from the early-life loss of the installed 40 GW grid-connected solar capacity.

Hence, it will be imprudent to ignore and delay the issue of PV waste management anymore.

Opportunities:

• While photovoltaics generate only about 3 per cent of global electricity, they consume 40 per cent of the world’s tellurium, 15 per cent of the world’s silver, a substantial chunk of semiconductor-grade quartz and lesser but still significant amounts of indium, zinc, tin and gallium.
• The two most popular module technologies in India are crystallised silicon (C-Si) and thin-film (mainly cadmium telluride, CdTe).
  • Both the technologies have a recovery rate of 85-90%.
  • The market value of raw materials recovered from solar panels could reach $450 million by 2030, according to a projection by the International Renewable Energy Agency.
  • This amount of raw materials is approximately the same as that required to build 60 million new solar panels or to generate 18 GW of electricity.
• Despite its ambitious expansion plans, much of India’s solar PV manufacturing uses imported components with parts mostly sourced from China.
  • India now has a manufacturing capacity of 3GW for solar cells and 15GW for modules.
  • Recycling solar waste will help in import reduction.

Issues:

• The large cost gap between recycling and discarding panels in landfills points to an unpleasant truth: The process generates roughly $3 in revenue from the recovery of certain materials.
  • Recycling a solar panel cost between $20 and $30, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory; sending it to a landfill costs $1-2.
• There was no commercial raw material recovery facility for solar e-waste operational in India, but a pilot facility for solar panel recycling and material recovery had been set up by a private company in Gummidipoondi, Chennai, Tamil Nadu.
• India currently considers solar waste a part of electronic waste and does not account for it separately.
  • The issue was not addressed in the last electronic waste management regulations in 2016.

Global Examples:

• The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive of the EU imposes responsibility for the disposal of waste on the manufacturers or distributors who introduce or install such equipment for the first time.
  • PV manufacturers are solely responsible for the collection, handling and treatment of modules at the end of their lifecycle.
• The UK also has an industry-managed “take-back and recycling scheme”, where all PV producers will need to register and submit data related to products used.
• In United States, Washington and California have come up with extended producer responsibility (EPR) regulations.
• The federal government In Australia has acknowledged the concern and announced $2 million grant as part of the National Product Stewardship Investment Fund to develop and implement an industry-led product stewardship scheme for PV systems.

Way Forward:

Roadmap to resource-efficient solar energy includes:

• Strong e-waste or renewable energy waste laws: EPR for the manufacturer and developers to take responsibility for end-of-life the solar panel.
• Infrastructure: To bring down the cost of recycling, infrastructure investment is required, coordination between the energy and waste sector to efficiently handle the renewable energy waste and build more recycling plants to avoid solar panels to end up in landfills.
• Environmental disposal and recycling of solar waste could be part of the power purchase agreement that government signs with project developers.
• Ban on Landfills: Solar panel waste is harmful to the environment as it contains toxic metals and minerals that may seep in the ground.
• New business models, incentives or green certificates could be provided to encourage the recycling industry to participate more.
• Research and Development: Innovation in design may have an impact on the type of waste they generate; technology advancements will be significant in reducing the waste.
  • New panels, for example, use less silicon and produce less waste during the manufacturing process.

Government had constituted a committee under the chairmanship of the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy’s Secretary to propose an action plan to evolve a “circular economy” in solar panel, through reuse/recycling of waste generated.

Source: The Hindu , Down to Earth

Mains Question:

Q. The gap between the solar waste production and handling capacity can turn India’s energy transition story into an environmental nightmare. Critically Analyze (250 Words).