Waste implications of Croatia's energy transition - projected waste from photovoltaic panels, electric and hybrid vehicle batteries, and wind turbine blades.

Croatia's energy transition will generate substantial end-of-life waste streams from photovoltaic panels (PV), electric and hybrid vehicle batteries, and wind-turbine blades, with significant implications for waste-management capacity. This paper applies a cohort-based, stock-driven material flow model using scenario-specific deployment pathways derived from official policy targets. Photovoltaic waste is projected to reach 41,481-47,423 tonnes by 2053, while cumulative in-use stocks reach 202,500-432,750 tonnes. Electric and hybrid vehicle battery waste is projected to reach 34,426-72,099 tonnes by 2050, driven primarily by the M1 passenger-vehicle fleet, with cumulative stocks of 115,040-496,335 tonnes. Wind-turbine blade waste from the existing 1264.15 MW installed capacity is projected at 13,051 tonnes by 2049, with cumulative stocks of 28,410-43,940 tonnes by 2075. The results show distinct waste dynamics across technologies. Battery waste dominates near-term flows due to short lifetimes, while PV waste is heavily back-loaded and concentrated around a mid-century peak driven by recent installation cohorts. Wind-turbine blades generate smaller but temporally concentrated waste waves in the 2040s. Sensitivity analysis indicates that shorter lifetimes can advance waste peaks by up to a decade, while reductions in material intensity could lower cumulative stocks by 25-50 percent, mainly beyond mid-century. These findings show that waste generation will not scale linearly with installed capacity and that reactive, single-stream planning is insufficient. Instead, anticipatory, technology-specific and integrated waste-management planning must be aligned with renewable-energy deployment. The modelling framework is replicable for other EU Member States to support evidence-based infrastructure planning aligned with circular economy objectives.