Union Minister Pralhad Joshi said on Thursday that the government is building a recycling framework for solar, wind, and battery waste. This plan aims to reduce dependence on imported minerals. Officials said, "The guidelines will require manufacturers to produce modules with a much higher degree of recyclability" for future use.
The government is working to strengthen recycling and reprocessing of waste from renewable energy technologies, including solar modules, wind turbine blades and battery storage systems, as part of a broader push to build a domestic circular economy and reduce dependence on imported critical minerals, Union Minister for New and Renewable Energy Pralhad Joshi said on Thursday. Moneycontrol was the first to report on January 6 that the government was working on a separate regulatory framework for solar photovoltaic waste, including plans for centralised storage of discarded modules. Speaking at a press briefing concluding the Bharat Renewable Energy (BRE)
Summit and Expo 2026, Joshi said Prime Minister Narendra Modi had asked ministers to work on a policy for reprocessing and recycling critical minerals that are not sufficiently available in India. MNRE Secretary Santosh Sarangi outlined the steps being taken to improve recycling of solar modules, wind turbine blades and batteries. He said stakeholder consultations on solar module waste management had been completed and the ministry was working on detailed guidelines. These will also mandate manufacturers to make modules that are easier to recycle. "The guidelines will require manufacturers to produce modules with a much higher degree of recyclability," he said.
Under the E-Waste (Management) Rules, 2022, manufacturers and producers are required to store solar photovoltaic module, panel and cell waste generated up to 2034-35, in accordance with guidelines issued by the Central Pollution Control Board. Sarangi said the provision was intended to allow sufficient volumes of waste to accumulate for recycling. The scale of the challenge is expected to increase as India's solar capacity expands. A study by the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW), supported by the MNRE, estimated that cumulative waste from existing and new solar capacity could reach around 600 kilotonnes by 2030.
A separate CEEW study published in November 2025 estimated that India could generate around 11,221 kilotonnes of cumulative solar module waste by 2047. Wind turbine blades and battery waste On wind turbine waste, Sarangi said most components were recyclable, but the epoxy resin used in turbine blades had posed a technological challenge. "But at the BRE Summit, Suzlon and Aditya Birla Group signed an agreement by which the epoxy could be fully recycled and could be used to manufacture completely recycled blades," Sarangi said. The MNRE will prepare a standard operating procedure (SOP) to extend the recycling requirement to other wind turbine manufacturers, he said.
On battery waste, Sarangi said the Ministry of Heavy Industries was working on an SOP for battery energy storage systems, including the recycling of lithium and other materials used in batteries.