The Korean government has established the ‘Renewable Energy 3020 Roadmap’ as the core plan of the energy transition policy, and set a goal to achieve 36.5GW of photovoltaic power generation by 2030 to increase the share of renewable energy generation by 20%. As part of our policy to cooperate the ‘Renewable Energy 3020’ project, Seoul Metropolitan Government(SMG) is pursuing the ‘Solar City, Seoul’ projects. SMG is promoting various photovoltaic projects with the goal of expanding and supplying 1GW, equivalent to the capacity of 1 nuclear power plant by 2022, and installing mini PV for 1 million households.

Since 2007, when the SMG began to expand PV supply, installed PV panel has increased drastically. Considering the life of PV system, it is expected that administrative demand for waste PV panelswill begin to emerge from 2023 to 2025. However, despite the expansion of photovoltaic power generation, the management system and the government’s policy on waste panels are insufficient, causing confusion about the scope of work between organizations of SMG. Specific guidance should be in place to address this.

Poor photovoltaic waste module management system

In 2018, about 20 tons of waste PV panels were discharged from all over the country. The classification of PV panel as a waste is not clear, The lack of demolition-collection-disposal system has caused confusion among departments of SMG. In addition, although regulations related to photovoltaic system installation are relatively clear, it is difficult to grasp the actual situation because the regulations on waste PV panels management are insufficient and data on PV panel inventory and waste PV recycle systems are not established.

The amount of waste PV panels to be generated in Seoul by 2040 was estimated by considering the installed PV panels and future PV panels. The forecasted waste PV is about 1,000 panels per year by 2022, and starts to increase to more than 34,000 panels per year from 2030. It is projected to be 420,000 in 2040.

If you want to remove PV from your home, apply it to a photovoltaic installer and collect it as a large waste. Household PV must be removed by solar installation company. Discharged PV panels must be cllected as large waste, which is then transported to waste storage site of each Gu District Office.

The national PV recycling center will be completed in 2021. If the PV panel is included in as an EPR item, the producer is responsible for collection and disposal. The solar modules discharged as large wastes are collected at local governments and stored in storage areas, where PV producers transport them to recycling center.

The PV panels as a large waste must be collected by the local government and stored in a temporary storage site, which is then transported by the producer to the recycling center. A typical large waste management system, when the emitter discharges large waste to the designated place, the municipality collects and disposes it directly or through a consignment company. The PV panel producer deposits funds in the Ministry of Environment, which must pay a deposit when the contractor processes the waste PV panels.