Queensland Could See 1.2 Million Solar Panels Decommissioned Next Year

Three men install solar panels on a roof as storm clouds approach in Albany, Western Australia, on Aug. 29, 2024. Susan Mortimer/The Epoch Times

Solar panels have a lifespan of 25 to 30 years, but they contain valuable metals, including silver and copper. Sending them to landfills when they’re decommissioned wastes those resources and takes up considerable space.

The Smart Energy Council (SEC) estimates that 1.2 million solar panels will be decommissioned next year in Queensland alone.

As part of the answer to that problem, a solar panel recycling plant—the first in the state—has started operating today. It can break down panels to their core materials.

First, the glass, which accounts for about 80 percent of a panel’s weight, is smashed off, which takes about 50 seconds. It’s then ground up and recycled.

The precious and semi-precious metals and raw minerals are then removed, which takes another 30 seconds.

The facility will be able to handle around 240,000 panels a year, 30,000 of which are part of an SEC pilot programme funded by the Queensland government.

Recycling ‘Essential’: Smart Energy Council

The Council’s Robyn Cowie said the ability to recycle panels is essential to Australia’s future of renewable energy.

“Stewardship is not only about stopping products from ending up in landfills but in the future, we are going to face a material shortage,” she told ABC.

“It is so important that the materials that come out are high quality and separated.”

In the past, 60 to 70 percent of Queensland’s decommissioned panels would have been shipped overseas for resale.

Still, China’s “highly subsidised” solar panel industry had forced down the price of new panels, meaning markets that previously bought second-hand products—particularly Africa—had switched to buying new ones, she explained.

It is illegal for solar panels to be sent to landfills in South Australia, Victoria, and the ACT, but not in Queensland, which means that around 800,000 panels would still be disposed of that way.

John Hill, director of the Pan Pacific plant on Brisbane’s southern fringe, said it was the culmination of two decades of work.

“I served in the army and we built solar race cars and I saw the panels were just being thrown away at the end of that. I decided to work on a way to reverse engineer those panels and the materials in them,” he said.

Without recycling, virtually all the positive effects of using solar panels were negated by the waste they produced, and the number of panels being decommissioned was only going to increase.

“Currently, we are throwing out tonnes of aluminium, silver, copper glass and plastics,” he said.