A 100-billion-CNY-level market is emerging in China's photovoltaic sector.

The China Photovoltaic Industry Association predicts that  a large number of photovoltaic modules will begin to retire in 2025 in China, and the scale of retired PV modules will increase rapidly at an annual rate of approximately 30% over the next decade. By 2025, the cumulative number of retired photovoltaic modules will reach approximately 9GW in China, with over 2.7GW of modules retired that year, equivalent to approximately 210,000 to 270,000 tons of waste.

According to the "2024 China Photovoltaic Recycling White Paper," the PV recycling market is expected to reach 26 billion CNY in 2030 and is expected to grow to 420 CNY in 2050. If all recycled, the cumulative value of extractable materials in 2040 will reach 110 billion CNY.

In 2024, China Resources Recycling Group (registered capital of 10 billion CNY) was established, specializing in resource recycling, with business covering the recycling of retired wind power and photovoltaic equipment.

In 2025, China Orient Asset Management will invest more than 18 billion yuan to build two major projects (1 million tons/year in Wusu, Xinjiang and 410,000 tons/year in Wuzhong, Ningxia).

JinkoSolar (which built a demonstration line in 2019) and JA Solar (which is currently investing in building a demonstration line) are both accelerating their technology reserves in the PV recycling field.

RESOLAR stated that PV recycling costs include transportation, disassembly, and environmentally friendly disposal. The economical radius of logistics is approximately 500-600 kilometers; beyond this, economic efficiency plummets.

Yongan Light Recycling said that energy consumption, labor and equipment depreciation each account for about 30% of the dismantling costs.

Industry insiders said that small workshops do not have environmentally friendly disposal costs and have profits that are at least half higher than those of formal enterprises, making them easier to survive.

RESOLAR divides the sources of photovoltaic modules into three categories: scrap materials from PV factories (mostly new products from 2024-2025), damaged PV modules (mainly from 2018-2025, including damage caused by natural disasters), and retired power station PV modules (mostly old products from 2000-2016).

Ruisai said that the retired PV modules of large-scale ground power stations are mainly in the hands of central state-owned enterprises such as the "five large and six small" enterprises, and it is difficult for private enterprises to obtain them.

Currently, there are nearly 200 companies (including small workshops) engaged in photovoltaic recycling, of which about 10 are operating on a large scale.

Small workshops can avoid environmental costs and buy PV modules at high prices (such as quoting 220 CNY per piece) .

Dilemma of Formal Enterprises:

• Need to bear the entire process costs of transportation, disassembly, and environmental protection, and the gross profit margin must exceed 25% to be profitable;

• The break-even point of the production line needs to reach an annual processing capacity of 5,000 tons. The current annual volume is only 300,000-400,000 tons, and the competition for supply is fierce.

RESOLAR's 10,000-ton production line in Fengyang, Anhui Province, began mass production in 2024, processing 900 tons of modules per month and achieving profitability last year. RESOLAR leverages its full industry chain and economies of scale to control costs and increase output value through high-purity, low-loss processes.

RESOLAR pointed out that due to the lack of special policies and pollution control standards for photovoltaic module recycling, small workshops circumvent environmental protection costs to procure PV modules at high prices, while most owners of scrapped PV modules sell them based on price as the only condition, resulting in the phenomenon of bad enterprises driving out good enterprises.

Haina Luo, an attorney at Guangdong Junxin Jinglun Junhou Law Firm, believes that to prevent "bad enterprises driving out good," a unified national access and whitelist system is needed to establish technical and environmental thresholds. Secondly, mandatory legislation and accompanying penalties are necessary. Any violation of dismantling or illegal disposal will result in a far higher price than complying with the law.

Read the full in-depth report:

https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/c8CYNJjLX_ESo7hYyyf80g

(Source: Time Finance)

This article is from the Time Finance (affiliated to Guangdong Times Media Group), which owns authoritative media such as "Times Weekly" and "New Weekly" and is known for its in-depth financial investigations.

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• Reporter Mingjun He has been following the fields of new energy, photovoltaics, energy and health for a long time, and has published many in-depth articles:

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