According to statistics from the Wind and Solar Committee, by the end of 2025, the cumulative retired volume of photovoltaic modules nationwide had reached 10 GW, corresponding to about 700,000 tons of dismantling weight, with early 270W power models as the main retired units.

1. Retired time distribution:

From 2025, large-scale retired modules will begin to emerge, and around 2030 the first wave of large-scale retirement will peak;

From 2040 to 2050, the industry will see its largest wave of retirement, with the cumulative amount of discarded photovoltaic modules in China expected to reach 40 million tons by 2040.

2. Retired spatial distribution:

The white paper points out that near-term retirements are concentrated in old photovoltaic bases in Qinghai, Ningxia, Gansu and Xinjiang in Northwest China; medium- to long-term retirement hotspots will shift to North China (such as Inner Mongolia and Hebei) and East China (such as Shandong, Jiangsu and Zhejiang). It is expected that by 2030, retired modules in the Yangtze River Delta will account for more than 50% of the national total; provinces with large installed capacities such as Shandong and Henan, as well as regions with frequent typhoons such as Hainan and Guangdong, will also see strong demand for module replacement in advance.

This white paper uses an operating age extrapolation method, integrating multiple variables such as policy and disasters, to conduct a precise calculation of the scale of photovoltaic retirement:

1. 2026 New Retirement Forecast

In 2026, the national total of new photovoltaic retirements will be 2.85GW, corresponding to 19.92 million tons of retired modules. Among them

• Normal retirement volume (dismantling capacity for natural end-of-life after more than 20 years of operation): 0.01GW, 0.07 million tons of modules;

• Accelerated retirement of old modules operating for 15-20 years: 0.25GW, 1.72 million tons;

• Accelerated replacement of low-efficiency modules operating for 10-15 years: 2.02GW, 14.15 million tons;

• Retirement due to accidental factors (natural disaster damage, project termination, etc.) dismantling capacity 0.57GW, 3.98 million tons of modules.

By the end of 2026, the cumulative retired modules nationwide will reach 12.90GW (about 90.26 million tons). Among them

• Normal retirement volume (from cumulative installations before 2006) dismantling capacity 0.08GW, module weight 0.56 million tons;

• Technology upgrades leading to early retirement: 4.18GW, 29.23 million tons;

• Dismantling capacity from natural disasters and other damage: 8.64GW, 60.47 million tons.

  
  

2. Medium- and long-term retirement scale forecast

2030: cumulative retirement of 30GW, module weight 2.16 million tons, and the industry enters a concentrated retirement stage;

2035: retirement scale rises to 148GW, with 10.41 million tons of discarded modules;

2040: retirement scale reaches 570GW, with 39.90 million tons of discarded modules, and photovoltaic recycling enters an era of ultra-large-scale stock utilization.

Shanghai Jihuan Jiayuan New Energy Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Jihuan Jiayuan” or “the Company”) is mainly engaged in the recycling of modules, the removal of impurities from broken battery cells, andrecycled silicon materials and battery cell echelon utilization enterprises. The Company and its affiliates have nearly 20 years of experience in waste recycling from solar cell production lines, and are among the earliest full-chain photovoltaic recycling groups in China to adopt recycled silicon material technology as the core, holding more than 80% of the domestic market. Jihuan Jiayuan’s independently developed “GST (Green Swelling Technology) Green Separation Method” is a joint separation method that is highly efficient, environmentally friendly, low-cost, and industrializable. Through the combination of self-developed materials, equipment and processes, it enables the production of 6N (99.9999%) grade silicon materials. The recycled silicon materials it produces offer significant advantages in carbon emissions and cost, realizing a closed loop from retired photovoltaic modules to brand-new photovoltaic module silicon materials and metals.

The Photovoltaic Recycling Industry Development Cooperation Center launched the project, with Tianhe Solar leading the initiative, and Jihuan Jiayuan,FREYR, Yongtuo and Zhongju jointly manufacturing the world’s first fully recycled photovoltaic module, which won the first prize in the Second Energy Electronics Industry Innovation Competition organized by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

Through the frame dismantling process, Jihuan Jiayuan disassembles aluminum frames from discarded photovoltaic modules, and Yongtuo makes them into brand-new photovoltaic module aluminum frames. Jihuan Jiayuan adopts its advanced GST green dismantling solution to achieve efficient separation of battery cells and glass in discarded photovoltaic modules. The photovoltaic glass recovered by Jihuan Jiayuan from discarded modules is large-piece, high-purity glass that can be used to make photovoltaic glass. Tianhe Solar uses the photovoltaic glass obtained from Jihuan Jiayuan’s dismantled old modules to make recycled glass panels. The separated broken battery cells from Jihuan Jiayuan can directly enter thesilver extraction stage. In the silver extraction process, Jihuan Jiayuan uses advanced silver recycling technology to remove the silver lines from the surface of broken battery cells and extract highly pure, mature-process, and extremely low-loss silver ingots from the broken cells. Jihuan Jiayuan then hands the recovered silver ingots to Tianhe Solar, which uses them to manufacture the world’s first fully recycled module. Through the collaboration of upstream and downstream partners, Tianhe Solar further processes the silver powder made from the silver ingots into front-side fine-grid paste. Next, Jihuan Jiayuan uses SWT silicon material cleaning technology to deeply remove impurities from the desilvered battery cells, ultimately converting them into high-purity silicon materials. Tianhe Solar uses the high-purity silicon materials recovered by Jihuan Jiayuan, removes body/surface impurities through its self-developed cleaning agents, and adopts N-type monocrystalline direct-pulling technology combined with low-temperature adsorption processes to obtain silicon wafers with performance close to that of conventional wafers.

Jihuan Jiayuan’s retired photovoltaic module recycling and high-value utilization technology won the Third Prize in the Second Energy Electronics Industry Innovation Competition organized by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

Jihuan Jiayuan, as the editorial unit of the International Renewable Energy Equipment Recycling Association and the Global Wind Energy Council, and deeply involved by the China Resource Recycling Association’s Special Committee on the Recycling and Utilization of Wind and Solar Equipment in the compilation of the International Report on the Recycling of Windand Photovoltaic Eguipment Industries (“China Wind Power and Photovoltaic Equipment Recycling Industry Development Report”), was specifically mentioned, and its innovative achievements in photovoltaic recycling technology have attracted widespread global attention.

Jihuan Jiayuan was selected in the first batch of the “Recommended List of Enterprises for the Retirement and Recycling of Wind Power and Photovoltaic Equipment” (a total of 13 companies were selected).

Jihuan Jiayuan participated in formulating the Inner Mongolia local standard of the group standard “Crystalline Silicon Photovoltaic Module Recycling Treatment Method — Thermal Decomposition Method” and the standard “Guidelines for Determining End-of-Life Crystalline Silicon Photovoltaic Modules,” promoting green photovoltaic recycling.

Jihuan Jiayuan was selected as a typical Chinese enterprise case in the International Energy Agency PV 2025 global photovoltaic recycling report, Status of PV Module Recycling in IEA PVPS Task 12 Countries 2025.