Solar panel recycling costs: a new decision-support framework breaks them into 22 items and five weighted groups

As solar capacity keeps growing, the question of what happens to panels at the end of their life comes up more and more often – yet far less attention goes to what solar panel recycling costs are actually made of. A paper published open access in the Journal of Cleaner Production in August 2026 sets out to fill that gap. Researchers at the Pontifical Catholic University of Paraná (PUCPR) in Brazil combined a systematic literature review with expert evaluation to build a hierarchical framework and a composite Costs Index, designed specifically for emerging economies.

In short: According to the study, solar panel recycling costs can be broken down into 22 expert-validated items grouped into five functional categories, with weights ranging from 17.79 to 21.71 percent. Operations and production received the highest weight, and the framework delivers a Costs Index that supports comparison between scenarios but is not an absolute economic measure.

Why is it so hard to put a price on an end-of-life panel?

The authors start from the premise that high cost is one of the biggest future obstacles to photovoltaic recycling. What is an advantage during operation – durability and a tightly laminated structure – makes separation difficult once the panel is retired.

The study identifies processed volume as one of the decisive cost drivers, and notes that compared with landfilling, recycling often looks economically unattractive. That picture matches the global model published in Nature, which found that solar panel waste recycling only becomes profitable between 2035 and 2040. Most research to date has focused on recycling technologies, while reverse logistics, economic assessment and management have received much less attention. A structured, comparable cost model was essentially missing.

The Brazilian context explains why this work comes from there. Federal Decree No. 10,240/2020 makes suppliers responsible for the reverse logistics of PV panels (collection points and proper disposal), while the Recycling Incentive Law (Law No. 14,260/2021) and its implementing Decree No. 12,106/2024 provide tax incentives for recycling projects. Regulation exists – the cost picture investors need does not.

From 5,784 records to 22 cost items: the method step by step

The research followed five consecutive stages, each method serving a distinct purpose.

• Systematic literature review: the initial search in Scopus and Web of Science returned 5,784 records. After filtering and removing duplicates, 2,684 articles remained; title and abstract screening narrowed these to 54, and finally to 23 studies that explicitly report at least one cost tied to PV panel recycling. These yielded 33 cost components.
• FAST analysis (Function Analysis System Technique): the 33 components were grouped into five categories by functional logic, asking in each case why the cost is necessary and how it contributes to the recycling process.
• Expert survey: 19 experts rated the components on a five-point Likert scale and the categories on a 0–100 percent relevance scale. The panel included people with management, engineering, energy, sustainability and recycling backgrounds; four held doctorates, seven had 1–5 years of experience and three had more than 20.
• Fuzzy Delphi method: linguistic ratings were converted into triangular fuzzy numbers and defuzzified with the centre-of-gravity method into a single importance value (Gi). Normalised values were split into quartiles: the top two were kept, the third was flagged for revision, and the fourth was removed.
• Mean Rank Position (MRP) and SWARA: third-quartile components were screened further with a normalised rank analysis, and category weights were derived with an adapted SWARA procedure (Stepwise Weight Assessment Ratio Analysis).

The experts ranked processing highest (Gi = 0.691), followed by component treatment – the specific treatments applied to individual components (0.652) – recycling site installation (0.637), scale (0.598) and labour (0.573).

Screening removed 11 components. The fourth quartile dropped administrative management, input storage, opportunity cost of alternative investments, machine and equipment cleaning, and administrative costs. The MRP screening of the third quartile removed six more: electricity, component handling, auxiliary materials acquisition, collection point installation, equipment maintenance and equipment depreciation. The authors stress that removal does not mean these items are universally irrelevant – only that the Brazilian expert panel assigned them lower relative importance and weaker consensus.

Solar panel recycling costs in five weighted groups

The final framework has two levels: five cost categories at the top, and the consensus-validated components assigned to each beneath them. The SWARA weights and category contents are:

• Operations and production – 21.71%: scale, processing, component treatment, labour, operational cost, component dismantling, disposal of non-recoverable parts (7 items).
• Infrastructure and facilities – 21.48%: collection point operation, recycling site installation, investment in facilities (3 items).
• Logistics and resources – 20.11%: transportation, waste collection, reverse logistics, component inventory (4 items).
• Sustainability and environmental impacts – 18.91%: external environmental cost, avoided landfill cost, environmental management and compliance (3 items).
• Management and finance – 17.79%: sales cost, material cost (losses and degradation), fiscal charges, indirect economic factors, financing through bank loans (5 items).

The weights sit remarkably close together: the gap between the highest and the lowest is just 3.92 percentage points. The authors read this as evidence that all five dimensions contribute meaningfully to the cost structure. The ranking is nonetheless consistent with the literature, which identifies processing operations, infrastructure and logistics as the main cost drivers.

The Costs Index: a number that only speaks in comparison

The framework’s practical output is a composite Costs Index (CI), calculated in three steps. First, observed values for each cost component are min–max normalised to a 0–1 range, since components are measured in different units. Second, the arithmetic mean of the normalised values within a category gives the category score – with equal weights, because the authors found no empirical basis for differentiating between components. Third, category scores are multiplied by the SWARA weights and summed.

In the paper’s illustrative example, a hypothetical plant scores 0.70 for infrastructure, 0.65 for logistics, 0.85 for operations, 0.55 for management and 0.60 for sustainability, giving a CI of 0.677. Lower values indicate more favourable cost conditions.

The key caveat is that this is not an absolute economic metric. Normalisation always refers to the minimum and maximum of the dataset in question, so the index can only be compared within the same analytical context, using the same definitions and boundaries. It can rank two sites of the same company, several collection scenarios in one region or a handful of technology routes – but it cannot directly compare a Brazilian plant with a European one.

What weighs on emerging economies

The authors highlight four structural constraints that push costs up in emerging economies:

• Fragmented reverse logistics: the lack of an efficient collection network raises collection and transport costs.
• Limited processing capacity: few plants mean longer transport distances and lower processing efficiency.
• Expensive capital and small scale: financing constraints raise both capital and operating costs.
• Low automation: labour-intensive processes reduce productivity, and small volumes prevent economies of scale.

These constraints are not unique to the developing world. Wherever PV recycling is just getting started, scale and collection logistics are the central questions. China’s new guidelines explicitly call for a rationally distributed national capacity network, while ROSI’s new plant in Spain moves towards economies of scale with a fully automated capacity of 10,000 tonnes a year.

On the policy side, the study argues that once the cost structure is transparent by category, instruments can be calibrated against it: tax incentives, partial exemptions, financing mechanisms, realistic recovery targets, licensing criteria and regional infrastructure planning. According to the authors, the framework can also be used to model compliance costs under regulatory scenarios, such as stricter dismantling or traceability requirements.

A critical look: where the framework gives way

The study’s strength is that it organises a previously fragmented subject into a single, transparent and replicable structure. From a practitioner’s point of view, however, several points call for caution.

Some screened-out items carry real operational weight. Electricity, equipment maintenance, depreciation and storage of incoming panels are not negligible in a working recycling plant – storage also carries fire and environmental risks. Tellingly, the paper’s own discussion section names energy consumption and depreciation as main cost drivers, even though both were removed during screening. Anyone applying the framework to a real facility would be well advised to reinstate them.

Near-identical weights offer little discriminating power. With all five categories between 18 and 22 percent, the index comes close to a simple average of the normalised scores. The weighting confirms the dimensions rather than ranking them.

A benefit inside a cost index. Avoided landfill cost is in fact a saving, yet it sits in an index where higher values mean a heavier cost burden. The paper does not clearly specify the sign with which this item should enter the calculation, which can easily cause confusion in practice.

The revenue side is missing. The framework is explicitly cost-oriented. But the viability of PV recycling depends at least as much on how much silver, silicon, copper and aluminium can be recovered, and at what price. On its own it is not a payback calculation but a preparatory structure for one – which is how the authors position it, as a complement to life-cycle costing and techno-economic assessment.

The expert sample and methodological details. A 19-member Brazilian panel is acceptable within the logic of consensus methods, but the weights reflect this group’s judgement, and nearly a third of respondents had five years of experience or less. The description of the MRP screening is also imprecise: the text calls values above 0.8 the highest priority, yet in the results table those are exactly the items that were removed. The study is limited to modules and does not cover inverters, batteries or mounting structures.

A Central European reading: how could the framework be used?

Hungary is not a typical emerging economy, yet when it comes to PV waste the similarities are clear: the volume of retired panels is still small, dedicated processing capacity is scarce, and collection and transport are relatively expensive per unit because of low volumes. Under EU WEEE rules, solar panels are electronic waste and fall under extended producer responsibility.

In this setting, the framework is most useful in three areas:

• As a checklist for feasibility studies: the 22 items – complemented by the operationally important ones that were screened out – provide a solid skeleton for the cost plan of a PV recycling or pre-treatment facility.
• For comparing collection and transport scenarios: the Costs Index can rank, for example, a centralised model against one built on several regional drop-off points using the same dataset.
• For preparing regulatory and funding decisions: the breakdown by category shows where investment support, a financing scheme or a logistics incentive would have the greatest effect.

The authors themselves recommend recalibrating components and weights to local conditions. A national expert group – plant operators, producer responsibility actors, authorities and researchers – would likely weight the categories differently from the Brazilian panel, and that adaptability is precisely the point of the framework’s modular design.

FAQ: solar panel recycling costs

Which groups does the framework use to organise solar panel recycling costs?

It uses five functional groups: operations and production, infrastructure and facilities, logistics and resources, sustainability and environmental impacts, and management and finance. Together they contain 22 cost items validated by expert consensus, with the largest share, seven items, in operations and production. The grouping is based on the Function Analysis System Technique (FAST).

Which cost category received the highest weight?

Operations and production received the highest weight, at 21.71 percent. It is closely followed by infrastructure and facilities (21.48%) and logistics and resources (20.11%), then sustainability and environmental impacts (18.91%) and management and finance (17.79%). The weights were calculated with an adapted SWARA procedure based on the assessments of 19 experts.

How is the Costs Index calculated?

Cost component values are first min–max normalised to a 0–1 range and then averaged within each category. The category scores are multiplied by the SWARA weights and summed. In the paper’s example, the index comes out at 0.677. Lower values indicate more favourable cost conditions, but the index can only be compared within the same dataset.

Which cost items did the experts exclude?

Screening removed 11 of the 33 items, including electricity, equipment maintenance, depreciation, storage of incoming panels and administrative costs. According to the authors, this does not mean these items are universally irrelevant, only that the Brazilian expert panel assigned them lower relative importance. When applying the framework to a real plant, it is worth reinstating them.

Can the framework be applied outside Brazil?

Yes, but it needs local recalibration. The authors themselves recommend adapting the cost items and weights to each country’s regulatory, technological and market conditions. In Central Europe it is most useful as a checklist for feasibility studies, for comparing collection and transport scenarios, and for preparing funding and regulatory decisions.

🔗 Official sources and references: 👉

Diniz, M. C., Munik, J., Schaefer, J. L. (2026): A decision-support framework for structuring and assessing photovoltaic panel recycling costs in emerging economies. Journal of Cleaner Production, 575, 149291. DOI: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2026.149291. Available online: 26 August 2026. Open access publication (CC BY 4.0).

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