EU PVSEC Conference side-event: Photovoltaic End-of-Life Management (PV EOL) workshop

IRENA, in collaboration with IEA PVPS Task 12, released a joint publication on the ‘End-of-Life Management of Photovoltaic Panels’ during a dedicated PV EOL half-day workshop at EU PVSEC. The comprehensive report, compiled over a year, provides a first international overview on the topic, considering regulatory and technological aspects and is the first-ever projection of PV panel waste volumes to 2050. The report highlights that recycling or repurposing solar PV panels at the end of their roughly 30-year lifetime can unlock an estimated stock of 78 million tonnes of raw materials and other valuable components globally by 2050. If fully injected back into the economy, the value of the recovered material could exceed USD 15 billion by 2050.

The EU PVSEC Conference is the most important annual gathering of the PV industry worldwide. In 2016, it was jointly hosted at the same time as the Intersolar Europe 2016.