India plans guidelines to recycle solar module waste and wind turbine blades

The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) in India is preparing guidelines to manage and recycle waste from solar modules and wind turbines.

Minister Pralhad Joshi announced the plan to promote a domestic circular economy before waste generation from solar projects peaks in the next few years. The ministry plans to mandate that manufacturers design modules with a higher degree of recyclability.

Currently, solar and wind waste falls under e-waste rules, which require companies to store wasted modules until 2035 when enough volume is expected to exist for large scale recycling. Secretary Santosh Kumar Sarangi noted that the ministry is currently formulating these guidelines following consultations with stakeholders. For wind energy, the ministry intends to create a Standard Operating Procedure to handle turbine blades.

While many parts of turbines are recyclable, the epoxy glue used to hold blades together has lacked a technological solution until recently. The ministry plans to use a recent agreement between Suzlon and the Aditya Birla group, which aims to recycle epoxy to manufacture new blades, as a model for other manufacturers. The ministry estimates that cumulative waste from solar installations in India could reach 600 kilo-tonnes by 2030.

To manage this waste responsibly, India will need an annual processing capacity of 3,600 tonnes by 2047. A study by the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) found that recycling a single solar module in India currently costs between Rs 883 and Rs 1,079.