The need for decarbonisation of the energy systems results in a rapid growth of PV installations worldwide as an emission free renewable energy source. An enormous anthropogenic stock of materials will be generated that will have to be recycled at the end of the PV product’s life. Though the estimated lifetime of PV modules is >25 years a PV plant’s economic lifetime may be shorter at around 15 years for the rapid introduction of advanced technologies with better conversion efficencies. Like for many other electronic mass products today the innovations cycles are very short and an increasing number of different materials is used. The high cost pressure on the PV producers forces them to save valuable materials or replace them in combination with the erection of fully automatic large scale productions. Thus the recovery value of materials of new products introduced to the market is lower compared to older products.

PV modules are electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) and the wastes collecting and recycling is mandatory in Europe. Several of the materials in a PV module may be valuable or even on the European list of critical materials like Ag, Te, In, Si etc., some of them may have consumed much energy like silicon and glass during manufacturing. A high yield and quality recycling is favorable though not yet sufficiently encouraged by current legislation. The challenge is to introduce economically viable recycling with robust processes to preserve the material value by producing high quality and yield of the output fractions and to support a high circularity of materials on a European level.