As homeowners replace old rooftop solar systems, a Woori Yallock installer is sending up to six times as many panels for recycling since the government introduced a battery rebate in 2024.

HDC Electrical & Solar’s Reneé Richards said the business, which has installed solar systems across the Yarra Valley and Melbourne’s eastern suburbs for 10 years, now removes and recycles about two to three systems a month, up from roughly one every two months before the battery rebate.

What’s the situation? Solar panels are a relatively simple technology. They largely consist of plastic, glass and metals like aluminium, all of which can be separated and recycled. They also include copper and silver, materials in shortage globally.

Victoria’s e-waste landfill ban means solar panels cannot go to landfill and must instead be taken to a facility that has been authorised by the Environmental Protection Authority. Specialist recyclers operating in Victoria include Elecsome in Keysborough, Sircel in Dandenong South and Lotus Recycling in Thomastown.

Australia currently lacks an overarching framework to ensure the recycling of solar panels, however, which means they can also enter an unregulated scrap metal network. Some damaged or broken panels are illegally exported.

Most modern warranties promise that solar panels will still have a power output of at least 80 percent after 30 years of operation, losing about 0.25 to 0.5 percent of their power output each year.

Specialist solar-panel recyclers can recover up to 90 percent of a panel’s materials for reuse, compared with about 26 percent at a general metal recycler.

The Blue Tribe Company, an Australian sustainability advisory firm, says Australia will accumulate one million tonnes of solar panel waste by 2033, which could deliver $38.4 billion of value by 2035 if recycled.

Darren Johannesen is an expert on sustainability of renewables infrastructure with the Smart Energy Council, Australia's independent peak body for the renewable energy industry. He said the cost of collecting bulky panels from homes and transporting them to recyclers was a major barrier to recycling.

The base rate to recycle solar panels at a certified facility is about $10 to $20 per panel, before considering removal and transport costs.

“People get a shock at how much it costs and it costs a lot of money because they're big and they're bulky to move around,” he said. “It should never be a problem that consumers are dealing with. It's a policy problem.”

Aside from transportation and recycling costs, there is also a fee attached to having installers climb on a roof and remove the panels.

The Smart Energy Council is calling for a scheme that would make solar panel manufacturers and importers responsible for the costs and logistics of recycling their products.

NSW is currently consulting the public on introducing a state-wide mandatory scheme.

Established in 2018, PV Industries can process a panel every minute using two purpose-built machines at its Derrimut plant in Melbourne’s west.

Co-founder James Petesic said the lack of national legislation made the company's supply of panels unpredictable.

“Sometimes, we'll receive 1,000 panels in a week and other times you'll receive 10,” he told the Eastern Melburnian. “It threatens the viability of our business because we don't have the panels to run the machinery as often as we would need to.”

Petesic said illegal exporters operating “under the guise of reuse” were another problem, with consumers often unaware of what happened to their old panels.

“No one wants to pay for waste,” he said. “So, people will just typically just take the cheapest option, unless they've done their homework and they want to do the right thing.”

The federal government is currently conducting an inquiry into solar panel reuse and recycling, with discussions underway about how a national scheme could be introduced.

The federal government had planned to launch a $24.7 million national solar panel recycling pilot in June, including setting up 100 collection sites across Australia. However, the project has been delayed.

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