Prabhu Vishnu S, Shrivastava Shraddha, Mukhopadhyay Kakali
Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, Pune, India.
Department of Agricultural Economics, McGill University, Macdonald Campus, 21,111 Lakeshore Road, Ste Anne de Bellevue, Montreal, Quebec H9X3V9 Canada.
Circ Econ Sustain. 2022;2(2):507-534. doi: 10.1007/s43615-021-00101-5. Epub 2021 Sep 18.
This pioneering work employs the attributional and comparative life cycle assessment methodology to evaluate India's ambitious target of installing 100 GW of solar energy by 2022 and the FRELP method to study the circular economy prospects of the substantial PV waste it is expected to generate. Business as usual projections suggest that the intended target will be achieved no sooner than 2029. The lower lifetime of polycrystalline PV modules combined with their lower efficiency is found to severely downgrade their environmental performance vis-à-vis monocrystalline PV modules. The end-of-life treatment of the projected 6,576 tonnes of solar PV waste, expected to be accumulated between 2034-59, indicates a recovery rate of 90.7% entailing electricity consumption, GHG emissions, and monetary cost of 678.6 MWh, 648 tonnes of CO2 eq., and USD 11.8 billion, respectively. Simultaneously, the recovery of aluminum and glass alone leads to a direct saving of 70.3 GWh of energy by eliminating raw material extraction and processing. Further, the economic value of the recovered material at USD 11.74 billion is found to have the potential to generate additional solar capacity worth 19 GW. However, making the end-of-life treatment of PV waste financially feasible would require government subsidization. A minimum amount that would equate the costs to the benefits is USD 690/MW. The study, therefore, intends to inform potential stakeholders about the environmental burden as well as the economic potential of the impending PV waste and concludes with important policy prescriptions for enabling a sustainable energy transition through the circular economy approach.
这项开创性工作采用归因和比较生命周期评估方法，以评估印度到2022年安装100吉瓦太阳能的宏伟目标，并采用FRELP方法研究预计产生的大量光伏废物的循环经济前景。照常预测表明，预期目标最早要到2029年才能实现。研究发现，多晶光伏组件较短的使用寿命及其较低的效率，使其相对于单晶光伏组件的环境性能严重下降。预计在2034年至2059年期间将累积6576吨太阳能光伏废物，其报废处理表明回收率为90.7%，这需要消耗678.6兆瓦时的电力、排放648吨二氧化碳当量，并产生118亿美元的货币成本。同时，仅铝和玻璃的回收就通过消除原材料提取和加工直接节省了70.3吉瓦时的能源。此外，回收材料的经济价值为117.4亿美元，有可能产生价值19吉瓦的额外太阳能发电能力。然而，要使光伏废物的报废处理在经济上可行，需要政府补贴。使成本与收益相等的最低金额为690美元/兆瓦。因此，该研究旨在让潜在利益相关者了解即将产生的光伏废物的环境负担和经济潜力，并以通过循环经济方法实现可持续能源转型的重要政策建议作为结论。
