With one of the highest per capita rates of rooftop solar installations worldwide, Australia has made it a cornerstone of its green revolution.
At last count there were some 4M homes with solar roof panels or over 150 million panels nationwide when commercial and large-scale systems are included. No mean feat lets face it.
But behind the clean energy good news looms the prospect of what we do with all those PV panels when they reach the end of their working life. Already around 4M are decommissioned each year and that figure is expected to double quickly.
In fact the figures are staggering. A study by the University of NSW suggests the cumulative volume of end-of-life solar panels is projected to reach 685,000 tonnes by 2030 and 1.157M tonnes by 2035, or something like 100,000 tonnes a year.
While most solar waste will come from homes in the short term, large-scale solar farms are set to become one of the largest sources long term, rising from roughly 10% today to around 22.9% by 2035.
Given that only 10% of panels are currently recycled here, alarms have started ringing. A recent report by the Australian Energy Council called it a “growing problem” that will need government action to fix and specifically a redesign of the National Television and Computer Recycling Scheme to include solar photovoltaic systems so all stakeholders are prodded to take responsibility for proper recycling. Such a fix is expected by the end of the year apparently.
The new law should help private solar panel recyclers and investors to enter the market with state of the art premises and technology that is able to achieve higher recycling rates and generate greater revenue from recovered materials. And, crucially, make it a profitable business.
There’s clearly an incentive given recycled solar panels are a valuable source of copper and silver, two of the world’s most valuable, hardworking metals. A typical 20kg solar panel now contains over $22 worth of recyclable materials and the UNSW study said it could be a $1B market by 2035.
The International Energy Agency recently warned of a looming 30% global copper supply shortfall, but said it could potentially be covered by urban mining, or recycling what we’ve already used. And what better place to start than the roof.
Cheers, John Fennell
