Solar today, waste tomorrow? – The Business & Financial Times

By Bernice Wilmot Oppong

 Ghana’s renewable energy transition is gaining momentum, driven in part by the government’s commitment to contributing to the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly SDG 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy), SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production), and SDG 13 (Climate Action).

Solar installations are expanding across households, public institutions, and off-grid communities, supported by national frameworks such as the Renewable Energy Act, 2011 (Act 832), which promotes the development and sustainable use of renewable energy resources.

Beneath this progress lies a critical gap: insufficient attention to the lifecycle impacts of renewable energy technologies. Current discourse has largely prioritised how rapidly solar systems can be installed and scaled. Solar panels and battery storage systems have finite lifespans, typically between 25- and 30-years lifespan, while batteries may require replacement within 10-15 years, depending on usage and technology (IRENA, 2023).

As adoption accelerates, Ghana is simultaneously building a future stream of electronic and hazardous waste. This presents a contradiction. While renewable energy supports climate goals, failure to address end-of-life management undermines SDG 12, which emphasises responsible production and consumption.

Ghana is not starting from zero. The Hazardous and Electronic Waste Control and Management Act, 2016 (Act 917), administered by the Environmental Protection Authority(EPA), provides a framework for managing electronic waste, including requirements for safe disposal, recycling, and extended producer responsibility. This framework however, was developed largely with conventional electronic waste in mind and does not fully address the scale and complexity of emerging renewable energy waste streams.

These technologies contain materials such as lead, cadmium, among other toxic elements. Without structured and enforced waste management systems, they risk contributing to environmental contamination and compounding Ghana’s existing e-waste challenges. In practice, gaps in enforcement and infrastructure mean that a significant proportion of electronic waste is still handled through informal systems, where unsafe practices persist.

The policy landscape reflects this imbalance.

While Ghana has made progress in promoting renewable energy uptake, regulatory frameworks governing the disposal, recycling, and recovery of solar technologies remain underdeveloped. The Energy Commission, which is mandated to regulate and promote sustainable energy development in Ghana, has increasingly emphasised the need for standards, compliance, and oversight in the renewable energy sector. Stronger integration between energy policy and environmental regulation is needed to address lifecycle impacts effectively.

A sustainable transition, therefore, requires a shift from a linear model install, use, discard: to a circular approach that integrates reuse, recycling, and material recovery. This is not only an environmental necessity but also an economic opportunity.

Encouragingly, Ghana has begun to move in this direction. Recent national initiatives promoting e-waste collection and recycling reflect a broader policy shift toward a circular economy, where materials are reused and recovered rather than discarded. Building on this momentum, similar frameworks can be extended to solar panels and batteries before the problem escalates.

Investing in local recycling capacity, refurbishment systems, and material recovery can create jobs, reduce environmental risks, and strengthen Ghana’s contribution to the global goals. There is also a need to strengthen extended producer responsibility, ensuring that importers and distributors share accountability for the full lifecycle of the technologies they introduce into the market.

Achieving this will require coordinated action.

Government must provide regulatory clarity and enforce existing laws, while the private sector, academia, and development partners drive innovation, financing, and technical solutions.

If managed strategically, Ghana’s renewable energy transition can do more than expand access; it can demonstrate how developing economies contribute meaningfully to global sustainability goals while building resilient, circular systems.

Renewable energy is the future, obviously. To truly support the global goals, sustainability within the solar energy industry must go beyond installation; it must include how we manage what comes next.

The real measure of success is not how many solar panels are installed, but how sustainably they are managed over time and this is the critical call to action for all stakeholders.

Bernice is a GRI Certified Sustainability Professional

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