<
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/oct/23/australia-renewable-energy-solar-waste>
"In a 50m shed south of Brisbane, solar panels are being turned into silver and
copper.
Photovoltaic panels no longer capable of producing electricity are having their
aluminium and wires removed before being ground up and refined into plastic,
glass, silicon, silver and copper. So far, nothing has gone to waste.
The Pan Pacific Recycling director, John Hill, says recovering the materials,
with no toxic fumes and nothing going to landfill, is a “big game changer to
the whole industry worldwide”.
Currently the company is processing 30,000 panels a year and hopes to scale to
240,000. But the recycling plant’s capacity is a sliver of the 1.2m solar
panels already coming off rooftops in the sunshine state alone.
Recently, Australia’s looming solar waste problem – identified as a priority
waste management issue by the federal government back in 2016 – has become
larger and more urgent.
Robyn Cowie, stewardship program manager at the Smart Energy Council, says
until recently 60% to 70% of the panels coming off rooftops and solar farms in
Australia were being sent into overseas reuse markets.
Four weeks ago, demand for Australia’s secondhand solar completely dried up,
she says. The price of brand new panels being produced in China is now so cheap
that used solar struggles to compete.
“China has an enormous capacity to create panels,” she says. “They’ve got
capacity for about 1.2 terawatts of panels. At the moment, they’re utilising
about 598 gigawatts of that capacity, and that really is causing the price of
panels to come down.”
The rapidly falling cost of new solar – made cheaper in Australia through
federal government incentives – is also feeding the solar waste problem, she
says. The falling cost encourages households and industry to replace working
solar panels early – and the vast majority end up in landfill."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
