Recently, PowerLab released the “Zero-Waste Future of Renewable Energy: A Study on the development of  recycling industry for wind and solar energy”, which understands the recycling status and market scale of China’s wind power and photovoltaic industry, the impact of the growth of recycling scale on society, global innovation practice and other dimensions, and puts forward suggestions.

Since 2000, China’s wind power and photovoltaic industry has entered the fast track of large-scale development. By the end of 2021, China’s cumulative installed capacity of wind power has reached 328gw, and the cumulative installed capacity of photovoltaic has reached 306gw, maintaining the first place in the global wind power photovoltaic installed capacity for several consecutive years. After 20 years of rapid development of China’s scenery industry, wind turbines and photovoltaic modules put into use around 2000 are about to reach their design life of 20 to 25 years.

The report points out that China’s wind power industry will usher in the first batch of large-scale decommissioning in 2025, with a decommissioning scale of more than 1.2gw; The photovoltaic industry will enter the intensive scrap period in 2030, and the recoverable capacity is expected to be as high as 17.8gw. By 2040, the cumulative retirement of wind turbines will reach 280gw, and the cumulative retirement scale of photovoltaic modules will reach 250gw.

The report points out that an efficient recycling industry can reduce the carbon emissions of wind power and photovoltaic modules in the renewable energy field throughout the life cycle, which greatly contributes to the realization of China’s carbon neutrality goal.

In terms of wind power, taking a 1.5MW fan as an example, if it can be 100% recycled, it can reduce about 600 tons of carbon dioxide emissions. By 2040, the cumulative recoverable scale of wind power is about 280gw, which can reduce carbon emissions by about 113 million tons.

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