International Industrial Ecology Day 2021

Continuing deployment of photovoltaic (PV) panels has resulted in a significant increase in the volume of discarded panels, which impose serious challenges to the management of end-of-life (EoL) PV modules. As one of the world leading countries in PV development, China have not yet taken considerable steps to tackle this growing challenge. Given the large land area and huge regional disparity in economic development and solar energy production potential, a spatial-temporal assessment of PV waste generation is critical to form effective waste monitor and management system for sustainable transition. This paper aims to estimate the China regional PV waste stream from the year 2020 to the year 2050, (i) develop a multiple criteria method combined with regress model to estimate regional solar deployment under multiple PV penetration; (ii) to project future solar waste combined with MFA under different technology scenarios, and present the dynamic association between the in-use stock and the annual inflow capacity. The significance of the findings reveal that the cumulative EoL PV presented a wide range from 460 to 1097.5 GW in different scenarios in 2050, accounting for about 1/3 ~ 1/2 of the in-use capacity. From 2040, the growth of stock in use capacity will significantly slow down and the waste amount will be almost equal to the annual inflow from 2040 onwards. The solar PV waste is unevenly distributed among regions and province. The region that holds the highest amount of solar waste is northern region, with 161.1GW. The least solar PV waste generation occurred in northeastern region. The spatial and temporal distribution of solar PV waste at provincial level shed light on the possibility of a circular economy and provide guidelines for the recycle strategies.