Waste To Wealth
Study proposes a comprehensive framework for PV waste management
India is among the top five countries in the world when it comes to installed solar energy capacity, bringing a lot of hope for decarbonisation and climate action. However, being a leader in the solar market also means heavy wastage of photovoltaic (PV) panels.
In this regard, CSTEP conducted a study to prepare a comprehensive framework for PV waste management. According to the study, India is projected to generate approximately 4.5 million tonnes of solar PV waste by 2050. However, only 20% of it is typically recovered, while the rest is disposed of informally. Therefore, closing this recovery gap is essential to manage the increasing quantity of solar PV waste effectively.
CSTEP has proposed an optimisation-modelling-driven recycling framework, which identifies clusters, collection centres, and optimal locations for setting up recycling units. The recycling framework consists of three approaches. The first approach considers the ‘shortest distance’ to identify optimal locations for recycling units. The second approach considers the ‘minimum transport cost’ (of transporting waste) to identify collection centres and the ‘shortest distance’ to identify optimal locations for recycling units. The third approach considers agglomerative hierarchical clustering (AHC) to determine the number of clusters and ‘minimum transport cost’ to identify collection centres and the optimal locations for recycling units.
For more information on the study, please see the policy brief here.
