SecondSol - Second-hand photovoltaic equipment marketplace with repair and recycling services

Meiningen, Germany · Italy · Poland · Netherlands · Spain · 2010 · SecondSol GmbH — Meiningen, Germany (founded 2010), operator of Europe's largest online trading platform for photovoltaic products.

SecondSol has operated continuously since 2010, well beyond a pilot stage: it describes itself as Europe's largest secondary photovoltaic marketplace, with 60,000+ users, 4,000+ active sellers and 1 million+ live listings as of 2026. Its July 2022 partnership with Elektron, Swissolar and Sens E Recycling embedded the platform into Switzerland's organized post-consumer PV logistics chain, formalizing a 'replacement module plus recycling' pathway for system operators — evidence of institutional uptake beyond a purely commercial listings site. Company leadership has also engaged directly in shaping sector rules: CEO and co-founder Stefan Wippich has publicly called for EU-level standardization of secondhand PV trading and for an end to uncontrolled export of photovoltaic waste, positioning SecondSol as an active voice in circular-economy policy for the solar sector rather than a passive intermediary. The emergence of comparable platforms elsewhere — Italy's KeepTheSun (operated by ESCO COESA) and South Africa's PVTRANSACT — indicates that the reuse-marketplace model is replicating across markets, reinforcing PV circularity as an operational norm rather than a niche practice.

Highlight

Europe's longest-running and largest secondary market for photovoltaic equipment — turning decommissioned rooftop and utility-scale solar hardware into an affordable, tested, second-life resource stream that keeps ageing urban solar fleets productive and out of landfill.

Extended description

• Context and problem: Europe's first large wave of photovoltaic installations, built during the 2004–2012 feed-in-tariff boom in Germany, Italy and Spain, is now reaching the end of subsidy periods, mechanical wear thresholds or technical obsolescence. Operators are repowering these systems with higher-efficiency modules, generating a fast-growing stream of components that still work but no longer fit the original site. Without an organized secondary market, functioning modules risk being landfilled or exported without controls, while smaller operators and municipalities lack affordable access to spare parts for systems whose original manufacturers have exited the market.

• How it works: SecondSol operates a business-to-business and business-to-consumer online marketplace where private and commercial sellers list new, used and spare photovoltaic modules, inverters, storage systems, mounting hardware and accessories. Buyers can browse more than one million active listings. The company also buys distressed and end-of-life stock directly from retailers and installers, warehousing more than 250,000 spare parts in a facility of more than 8,000 m² in Meiningen, Germany. A dedicated PV test centre verifies used-module performance (visual inspection, electroluminescence imaging, I–V curve and electrical testing) before resale — tested modules typically retain 80–90% of their original rated output.

• Technologies, products and services: beyond the core marketplace, SecondSol runs a module and inverter repair service, a 'replica' service that manufactures replicas of legacy modules for systems whose exact original components are discontinued, a repowering category split into plants with and without feed-in tariffs, dedicated ReUse-panel and ReUse-inverter listings, a solar yield and loss calculator, a training center, a fulfilment and logistics centre, and a disposal-and-recycling coordination service for panels that can no longer be reused.

• Operational logic and stakeholders: private sellers can list up to three items and commercial sellers up to five items, free of charge; larger volumes require paid advertising packages, which — together with direct stocklot trading via http://sunkauf.de — form the company's revenue model. Since July 2022, SecondSol has partnered with Swiss technology company Elektron, supported by the Swissolar industry association and Sens E Recycling, to give Swiss PV operators local access to replacement modules alongside professional recycling of end-of-life panels — embedding the marketplace in a national circular-economy chain rather than leaving it as a purely commercial tool.

• Systemic implications: by adding price transparency and third-party quality assurance to secondary PV hardware, SecondSol makes it easier for low-income households, community energy cooperatives, small installers and — increasingly — buyers in the Global South to access renewable technology, while supplying the replacement parts that keep ageing distributed urban solar fleets (rooftops, balconies, small commercial arrays) operational rather than prematurely decommissioned. This reduces both the manufacturing emissions tied to new equipment and the volume of electronic waste that city and regional waste-management systems must absorb as the first generation of urban solar reaches the end of its life.

Demonstrated metrics

• 60,000+ registered users across Europe and 4,000+ active sellers online (2026 platform figures).

• 1,000,000+ products listed at any time across photovoltaic, storage, heat-pump and e-mobility categories.

• 250,000+ spare parts warehoused in a facility of more than 8,000 m² in Meiningen, Germany.

• Operating continuously since 2010 — one of the longest-running secondary photovoltaic marketplaces in Europe.

• Tested used PV modules typically retain 80–90% of their original rated performance and can be redeployed for 10+ additional years.

• Used-module prices are commonly reported at 50–75% below new equivalents in secondary PV trade reports.

• Sector context (not SecondSol-specific): IRENA/IEA-PVPS project that cumulative global PV panel waste could reach up to 78 million tonnes by 2050, with recoverable raw-material value exceeding USD 15 billion if captured circularly; circular-economy studies estimate that keeping end-of-life PV in circulation rather than discarding it can avoid in the order of 2,750 kg CO₂e per tonne of panels.

Implementation location and date

Germany (Meiningen, Thuringia — headquarters and central warehouse) since 2010. Fully commercial, operational platform serving users across Europe, with the largest seller and buyer bases in Germany and Italy and significant activity in Poland, the Netherlands and Spain. Formal retail and recycling partnership in Switzerland since July 2022. Not a pilot — a continuously operating European-scale marketplace and services business.

Similar cases elsewhere

KeepTheSun (Italy) — a secondhand PV and spare-parts marketplace operated by Energy Service Company COESA, competing directly with SecondSol in the Italian market. PVTRANSACT (South Africa) — an online marketplace for buying and selling new and used solar PV equipment, showing the reuse-marketplace model being replicated in the Global South. Energybin (United States) — a B2B secondary marketplace for solar and storage equipment. Beyond formal platforms, large informal secondhand-PV trade routes already supply Kenya, Nigeria, Mali, Morocco and the Democratic Republic of the Congo with used European modules at prices 50–75% below those of new modules — a market that currently lacks SecondSol's testing and quality-assurance layer, marking a clear opportunity for formalized circular-PV platforms in the Global South.