This data-file aims to break down the costs of decommissioning solar projects. Gross costs are estimated within a range of $0.03-0.20/W, which is around 3-20% of the initial installation costs.
This is better than nuclear, offshore wind and coal decommissioning costs, but worse than natural gas (data are shown in the file).
What might help the economics for solar is the ability to re-use old panels, in markets that are particularly price sensitive. In the best cases, this could allow zero-cost decommissioning of solar assets or possibly even a small profit.
Re-deploying old solar panels could also accelerate the global deployment of solar by c5%. Our notes, conclusions and numbers are built up in the data-file.