Solar PV observatory · — countries with records · — public sources

The solar fleet,
under observation.

LIFETIMEBESS Solar maps solar plants from public registries and national statistics, and records the source of every figure it shows. Residential systems appear only as aggregates.

The interactive map and the figures need JavaScript. Each figure is read from the public data file named under it.

Each marker is one mapped commercial or utility-scale plant in operation. Plants being commissioned are not drawn. Hover or tap a marker for its country, capacity and status
—
mapped plants in operation, commercial and utility
Source: manifest.json, totals.points, from the status 0 rows of fleet.json (the rows the map draws)
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plants in commissioning or under construction, counted separately and not drawn on the map
Source: manifest.json, totals.commissioning_points, from the status 1 rows of fleet.json
—GW
operating capacity, kWp (some values ESTIMATED from AC)
Source: manifest.json, operating kWp (status 0) divided by 1,000,000. Mixed basis: DC as published, AC converted with an estimated 1.2 ratio, and gross capacity from CNE Chile. It is not one homogeneous measure
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countries with plant or area records
Source: manifest.json, from fleet.json and areas.json
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public sources in use
Source: manifest.json, count of sources used in the build (licences and dates in sources.json)

Data as of —. Capacity and registry counts, not measured output. Modelled figures are labelled ESTIMATED. How the figures are built.

Open the observatory Free PV Health Score
Two clocks · end of life

The end of a panel
is a decision, not a date.

A panel loses output gradually, and its end-of-life obligations follow dates set in regulation. Neither clock waits for the panel to fail, so what happens to it at the end of its life is a decision to make on purpose.

0.94 %/year
median degradation rate across 80 primary studies (Straub-Mück et al., 2025)
85 % · 80 %
EU WEEE targets for the category that includes PV panels, from 15 August 2018: recovery, and preparation for re-use and recycling

The output decline is a literature median across studies, not a measurement of your system. The end-of-life targets are regulatory facts, cited below.

The evidence behind the clocks

What each clock is built on

Clock 1 · output decline

A 2025 meta-analysis of 80 primary studies reports a median degradation rate of 0.94 %/year and a mean of 1.10 %/year. The rate is a literature median, not a measurement of any one system.

Rates depend on climate. In the same meta-regression, desert modules degrade about 0.642 percentage points a year faster than modules in a moderate climate, and hot-humid modules about 0.486 points faster.

Source: Straub-Mück, Geyer-Klingeberg and Rathgeber (2025), Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 216:115697, doi:10.1016/j.rser.2025.115697, Abstract, Sec. 1, Sec. 3.2 and Fig. 1.

Clock 2 · end-of-life obligations

European Union. Directive 2012/19/EU (WEEE) lists photovoltaic panels in its scope. From 15 August 2018, its Annex V sets targets for the category that includes PV panels (Annex III, category 1 or 4): 85 % recovered, and 80 % prepared for re-use and recycled. Both are measured against the weight of separately collected WEEE in that category.

Under review. The Commission must assess by 31 December 2026 whether the Directive needs revising (Directive (EU) 2024/884, Art. 24a). A separate PV collection target, based on panels available for collection, is one option under consideration. It is not in force.

Chile. Decree No. 22 of the Ministry of the Environment, dated 17 July 2025 and published on 7 May 2026, sets separate collection and recovery targets for photovoltaic panels. Its targets take effect 24 months after publication. The schedule has no target in years one and two, 10 % in year three and 50 % from year ten.

Sources: Directive 2012/19/EU, Annex V, Part 3(a), consolidated text of 8 April 2024; Directive (EU) 2024/884, Art. 1 (new Art. 24a); Decreto Núm. 22, Ministerio del Medio Ambiente, Diario Oficial Núm. 44.443 (7 May 2026), Art. 25 and Art. 49.

What these obligations cost a given owner depends on the route chosen. See The Loop for the routes and how they compare.

Services

Tools built on the same evidence

Each tool runs in your browser, and the figures you enter stay there. Every assumption you can edit is labelled VERIFIED, ESTIMATED or ILLUSTRATIVE, with its provenance.

PV Health Score

Load a monitoring or inverter export and get a 0–100 score, with subscores for output against expectation, trend, availability and data quality. Findings are priced in US$ per year at a tariff you set.

Open PV Health Score →

Warranty Guard

Set a degradation assumption and test it against generic power-warranty templates, which are illustrative. The projection gives a P50 result and a p05–p95 band, set against the guaranteed curve.

Open Warranty Guard →

Verify

Check an evidence package in your browser. Its SHA-256 digests and Ed25519 signature are verified against the public key published on the page. This shows that the package is unaltered and was signed by that key. It does not verify the field data inside it.

Open Verify →

Route Grader / Material recovery

For a retiring system or module set, compare keeping it in service, refurbishing and reselling modules, reuse off-grid, and recycling, each with editable assumptions. Material recovery estimates the mass of glass, aluminium, silicon, polymers, copper and silver per module, and sets it against the EU targets.

Open Route Grader → · Material recovery → · The Loop →

Warranty templates are ILLUSTRATIVE and are not the terms of any manufacturer. Modelled outputs are ESTIMATED, not measurements of a named system.

Who it is for

Who carries the decision

Installers and EPCs

Check what a system delivers against what was modelled at the bid, and show the warranty assumption behind the offer.

Owners of commercial and utility plants

Follow output against the expected curve, see what the warranty assumption implies, and plan the end-of-life route before the first decision date.

Lenders and insurers

Read the same assumptions behind a performance or warranty claim, with the provenance of each figure shown.

Recyclers and second-life operators

Compare material recovery per module with the EU targets, and see which routes a module stock can take.

Residential systems (10 kW and below) appear only as aggregates by administrative area, with at least five systems per cell. We do not publish names, addresses or household coordinates.

Tell us which systems you are responsible for.

Send one system, one fleet or one end-of-life decision. We reply with the figures we can stand behind and the assumptions we would need from you.

Write to us