Beyond the glare |
India’s solar story is often told as a clean break from a coal-heavy past: sunlight replacing smoke, rooftops turning blue, and power flowing without soot or ash. That narrative is broadly true, but it is also incomplete. Beneath the celebratory numbers lies a quieter question that India has barely begun to answer: what happens when the panels stop working? Solar power feels clean because their pollution is invisible during use. Unlike coal, they do not belch fumes or leave behind mountains of ash.
But invisibility is not the same as absence. Solar panels are industrial products with finite lifespans, complex material mixes, and trace toxic elements. When millions of them reach end-of-life, they do not simply vanish. They accumulate. This is not an immediate crisis, and that is precisely why it is dangerous. Most large solar installations were built in the last decade, giving the country a false sense of comfort. The........