Solar Observatory: Chile’s photovoltaic fleet and its waste

The Solar Observatory is the series Ecobaterías uses to estimate when and how much photovoltaic material will leave service in Chile. At the 2026-09-11 cut-off it covers 756 operating plants, 12,884 MW of nameplate capacity and about 34.9 million modules. This page sets out its scope, assumptions, update cycle and aggregate results.

Updated 2026-09-19 · Data cut-off: 2026-09-11 · Reviewed by the Ecobaterías technical team.

• 756operating photovoltaic plants covered by the cut-off
• 12,884 MWof nameplate capacity analyzed
• ≈34.9 millioninstalled modules estimated
• ≈1.0 million tof modules that will reach end of life

Source: Ecobaterías Solar Observatory · cut-off 2026-09-11

What the Solar Observatory is

Chile built one of Latin America’s largest photovoltaic fleets in a decade, and almost all of it is still generating. The question with no public answer was this: when does that material start leaving the system, and in what volume? The Solar Observatory exists to answer it with our own series, transparent about its assumptions and open to challenge.

It is not an official census and it does not replace state registers. It is an estimate built plant by plant from public information, with explicit rules anyone can dispute. Every photovoltaic figure Ecobaterías publishes on the site and in the battery and solar panel statistics table for Chile comes from here.

Scope and primary sources

The scope of the cut-off is Chile’s operating photovoltaic plants: 756 units adding up to 12,884 MW of nameplate capacity. For each plant we take its capacity, its commissioning year and, where available, the declared technology and module rating.

The sources are public: the sector registers of electrical installations and operating projects, generation reports and the environmental assessment files of each project. Where a plant does not declare its module, the number of units is estimated from nameplate capacity and the typical module rating for the commissioning year.

Rooftop distributed generation is not part of the scope: its traceability is different, modules arrive in small batches and removal follows another logistics route. We still handle that flow at the plant, but it is not part of this series.

Model assumptions

The three assumptions that weigh most on the result are stated explicitly, because they are the ones anyone would want to change to build their own estimate.

Swipe to see the full table

Source: Ecobaterías Solar Observatory · cut-off 2026-09-11

A fourth assumption, less visible but decisive, is that the expiry of a plant’s power purchase agreement (PPA) opens a decision window over its modules: repower, resell or remove. We do not assume the plant closes; we assume the decision concentrates in those years, which is why the expected flow rises.

Mass per module is estimated from the dominant format of each cohort. Because unit weight grew with module size, a tonnage estimate built on a single average weight understates the recent cohorts.

Aggregate results of the cut-off

These are the national aggregates at the 2026-09-11 cut-off. They are the only results we publish: the plant-level and owner-level detail stays out.

Swipe to see the full table

Source: Ecobaterías Solar Observatory · cut-off 2026-09-11

For contrast: the Ministry of the Environment estimates around 11,000 t per year of early photovoltaic module waste. The two series measure different things — ours starts from the inventory of plants and the Ministry’s is an aggregate of early waste — so they can be compared, but not added together.

When the material arrives: milestone timeline

The curve is not flat. Through 2029 the flow is dominated by breakage, in the tens of thousands of modules a year. After that the power purchase agreement expiry years arrive, and the volume rises by an order of magnitude.

Swipe to see the full table

Source: Ecobaterías Solar Observatory · cut-off 2026-09-11

It bears repeating, because it is often misread: these are supply contract expiries, not closures announced by the owners. An owner may renew, sell the energy on the market or repower with new modules; in all three cases there is a decision to make about the installed module.

The timeline also lines up with the targets of Supreme Decree (DS) 22/2025 for photovoltaic modules: 10% collection in year 3 (2030) and 50% in year 10 (2037), measured against the estimated waste of each year. The first target lands exactly in the first year of large expiries.

What we do not publish, and why

The Observatory also feeds an internal report for clients and counterparties. Nothing from that report that identifies commercial positions is published: neither the ranking of plants by owner, nor the commercial priority index we use to order field work.

There are two reasons. First, a ranking by owner built on our own assumptions reads as a claim about specific companies, and it is not one. Second, plant-level detail is competitive information belonging to our counterparties. National aggregates, by contrast, are of public interest and are published in full.

How to cite it and how often it changes

The series is reviewed twice a year and updated sooner if the register of operating plants changes materially. Every figure we publish carries its cut-off date in plain sight, and the full table, with the identifier of each record, is at datos/estadisticas.json.

You may reuse these aggregates by crediting Ecobaterías and the cut-off date, for example: “Ecobaterías Solar Observatory, cut-off 2026-09-11”. If you need the series broken down by region or by commissioning year, write to us and we will assess what we can share.

What we do with modules that leave service

Measuring the flow is how you prepare for it. Every removed module is tested before its destination is decided: visual inspection, insulation, electroluminescence and an I-V curve. With the measured power, the module is graded class P1 if it keeps 85% or more of nameplate power, P2 between 80 and 85%, P3 between 70 and 80% — off-grid systems only — and below 70% it goes to recycling.

The full protocol is in used solar module testing and reuse, and the recycling route in solar panel recycling in Chile. Who may legally receive the material is explained in what an authorized lithium battery waste manager is, and the duties created by Chile’s Extended Producer Responsibility law (Ley REP, Law No. 20,920) in Chile’s EPR law applied to batteries.

Sources

• Ecobaterías Solar Observatory: scope of operating plants, assumptions and aggregates, cut-off 2026-09-11.
• Ministry of the Environment, estimate of early photovoltaic module waste: mma.gob.cl (opens in a new tab).
• Ministry of the Environment, Supreme Decree (DS) 22/2025, published in the Official Gazette (opens in a new tab) on 2026-05-07.
• Library of the National Congress of Chile, Law No. 20,920 on waste management and extended producer responsibility (opens in a new tab).
• Publishable figures and their attribution: datos/estadisticas.json by Ecobaterías, cut-off 2026-09-18.