Workers check solar panels at a solar power station on a factory roof in Changxing,eastern China’s Zhejiang province.Credit:AP
“Australia is an international solar success story,with the greatest penetration of household solar PV in the world,however less than 5 per cent are being recycled,” said John Grimes,Smart Energy Council chief executive.
“Australia has a world-class solar panel recycling industry at risk of stagnation and decline after a decade of successive Australian governments promising to act but failing to do so,” he said.
The Smart Energy Council estimates a fee of around $10 per panel could sustain the industry,which would also profit from the sale of the recycled materials.
With Australian leading the world in rooftop solar and the panels installed by early adopters now reaching the end of their lives,the country faces “an escalating solar PV panel crisis”,says a joint statement drafted by the Council and signed by organisations and companies including the AMWU,the Australian Industry Group,Veolia and the Climate Council.
Annual solar panel waste volumes are predicted to nearly double over the next five years,from 59,340 tonnes in 2025 to 91,165 tonnes in 2030.
Over the past decade,the cost of solar panels has fallen by 90 per cent due to massive Chinese expansion in solar factories,and the federal government’s battery rebate scheme is making solar systems even more economically attractive to householders in this country.
Proponents of compulsory schemes say that if the price was locked into the purchase price and home owners could have them automatically removed at the end of their useful lives for recycling,all that material would be diverted from landfill.