Robust design of a strategic network planning for photovoltaic module recycling considering reclaimed resource price uncertainty

PhotoVoltaic (PV) power is one of the rapidly growing solar energy technologies worldwide. The installed PV power capacity has considerably increased over the past decades. Consequently, the End-of-Life management of used PV modules is becoming very urgent. This article investigates strategic recycling network planning for recycling PV module considering reclaimed resource price uncertainty. Based on a real case setting, the problem is first formulated as a risk-neutral model and then extended to a risk-averse model that considers the risk preferences of investors. Moreover, robust reformulations of the risk-neutral/risk-averse models are proposed to hedge against ambiguity in the probability distribution of the uncertain resource price. An outer approximation based solution approach is proposed to solve the robust reformulations. Numerical experiments with test data generated from the real case are carried out to demonstrate the benefits of the resulting robust model and managerial insights are explored. Lastly, conclusions are drawn and future research directions are outlined.