Posted by This was first published in the Western Advocate (Bathurst, NSW, Australia) on April 11, 2024.
Solar panels, especially in our region, are an effective way of harnessing the light of the sun as a renewable energy source. However, when it comes to recycling them, we can do better. While most solar panels are still working efficiently, we need to plan now for how they can be replaced. Without recycling, solar panels are in danger of being another energy technology largely divorced from nature, causing it harm.
Solar panels, if they are to be a truly green energy source, need to be part of a growing circular economy. So, can all their components be effectively recycled and used again in the production of more solar panels? Not yet.
If we are to recycle panels, we first need a way to collect and store them. As of twelve months ago, an estimated 90% of them were going to landfill.
In March, UNSW produced a report on the state of solar panel management in Australia. The report recommended that there first needs to be, by 2027, effective waste facilities for solar panels in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, and Adelaide; with regional centres up and running by 2030. By 2030, there will be anywhere between 280,000 to 700,000 tonnes of waste in need of storage.
That’s just collection. What about recycling?
It is currently economically cheaper to dump solar panels in landfill. Recycling costs $500 to $1000 per tonne. However, if panels can be recycled more cheaply and safely, the value of their components could pass $1 billion by 2035. Nano-silicon alone is currently valued at $45,000 per kilogram. Chief components, silver, aluminium, silicon, glass, and copper can then all be reused.
In 2023, UNSW developed a way of separating 99 per cent of panel material which employs, in part, crushing and sieving with abrasive stainless-steel balls. All well as this, Deakin University developed a cheaper and more eco-friendly way of extracting nano-silicon. The downside of these approaches, collectively, is that they are water intensive. Next steps for these methods are to make them possible at scale.
Australia is a world leader in solar panel use. We need to be the same in panel collection and recycling. Tanya Plibersek (Federal MP for the Environment and Water) has plans to regulate panel recycling, pressuring the industry to step-up. It needs to be done quickly.