Rapid 5-Year Repowering of Photovoltaic Power Plants in Demanding Climates: Effective, Very Clean Recycling and Disassemblable PDMS-Gel Encapsulation to Reduce Environmental Impact

Photovoltaic (PV) plants are often planned for a 25–30-year module service life, yet field experience in demanding climates indicates that effective lifetimes can be much shorter and that dry-only insulation checks may underestimate wet-condition risk. Repowering after ~5 years can restore yield and reduce operational trips, but it com-presses PV waste and manufacturing into repeated surges. We review evidence that moisture (dew/rain), especially around sunrise, can activate leakage pathways and reduce insulation resistance (ground impedance, Risol), including IEC-conformant wet leakage testing of field-aged modules showing a dry-pass/wet-fail population. We also summarise a delamination-driven pathway from water ingress to discharge channels, inverter shut-down and potential damage. To mitigate environmental impacts under frequent repowering, we discuss repowering-ready module designs using soft polydi-methylsiloxane (PDMS) gel encapsulation enabling room-temperature delamination, very clean high-efficiency recycling and high component reuse. A transparent 30-year scenario model illustrates “year-5” waste surges and a 6× module throughput multi-plier under 5-year repowering. We conclude that demanding-climate sites with rapid repowering should combine risk-based wet-condition insulation verification with documented and auditable low-emission end-of-life processing enabled by disassem-blable module architectures.