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Researchers at the Pontifical Catholic University of Parana in Brazil have proposed a framework for assessing the recycling costs of photovoltaic systems, with a focus on emerging economies, according to pv magazine. The study, published in the Journal of Cleaner Production, was built from a literature review and an expert evaluation.
The team said the framework is intended as a structured decision-support tool for assessing and managing recycling costs tied to end-of-life solar panels, and noted that its category weights and cost priorities reflect the emerging-economy context in which it was developed, though it could be adapted to other regulatory, technological and market conditions.
Searches in Scopus and Web of Science initially returned 5,784 records. After filtering, duplicate removal and screening, 23 studies that explicitly reported photovoltaic recycling costs remained. From these, the researchers extracted 33 cost components and used the Function Analysis System Technique to group them into five categories.
The first two categories were infrastructure and facilities, covering equipment depreciation, collection point operating and installation costs, recycling site installation and facility investment; and logistics and resources, covering input storage, transportation, waste collection, auxiliary material acquisition, reverse logistics and component inventory.
The other three were operations and production, spanning scale, processing, electricity, component handling and treatment, labor, equipment maintenance, general operating costs, dismantling, machinery and equipment cleaning and disposal of non-recoverable parts; management and finance, covering administrative management and costs, sales costs, material costs, taxes and fees, opportunity costs, indirect economic costs and bank loan financing; and sustainability and environmental impacts, covering external environmental costs, avoided landfill costs and environmental management costs.
Nineteen experts rated each component on a five-point importance scale and assessed category relevance from 0% to 100%. The researchers used the Fuzzy Delphi method to aggregate the judgments and calculate normalized relevance scores, then applied Mean Rank Position analysis to screen borderline components, retaining 22 and excluding 11.
The excluded components were input storage, electricity, component handling, equipment maintenance, auxiliary material acquisition, equipment depreciation, administrative management, administrative costs, collection point installation, opportunity costs, and machinery and equipment cleaning.
An adapted Stepwise Weight Assessment Ratio Analysis procedure assigned relative weights to the categories, and a Costs Index was defined by averaging normalized component values within each category and summing the weighted category scores.
Operations and production received the highest weight at 21.71%, followed by infrastructure and facilities at 21.48%, logistics and resources at 20.11%, sustainability and environmental impacts at 18.91%, and management and finance at 17.79%.
Among individual components, processing, component treatment and recycling site installation drew the highest normalized relevance scores at 1.000, 0.882 and 0.836. Machinery and equipment cleaning and administrative costs received the lowest scores, at 0.039 and 0.000.
The researchers concluded that the framework organizes and assesses photovoltaic panel recycling cost components and provides a consistent basis for comparing technological alternatives, logistics arrangements, suppliers and regulatory scenarios, supporting strategic planning, operational management and investment decisions in the photovoltaic circular economy. They added that although it was developed for an emerging economy, it could be adapted to other regions by recalibrating cost components and category weights to local conditions.
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Operates module manufacturing capacity in Brazil
Supplies modules to Brazil's utility and distributed generation markets
Markets Vertex series modules in Brazil
Supplies its Hi-MO module families to the Brazilian market
Has operated solar panel manufacturing in Brazil
Supplies module products for Brazilian solar projects
Offers high-efficiency module products in Brazil
Markets CHINT's solar module products in Brazil
Brazilian solar module manufacturer
Supplies solar modules through its Brazilian market operation
Markets solar modules in Brazil through local operations
Supplies crystalline solar modules to Brazilian projects
Markets solar panel products through its Brazil presence
Offers its full-screen module products in Brazil
Supplies crystalline solar modules to Brazilian distributors
Markets GCL solar module products in Brazil
Supplies solar modules through Brazilian distribution channels
Suntech module products are supplied to Brazil's solar market
Brazilian distributor supplying solar modules to installers
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