Solar Recovery Corporation — An Australian success story
- Kate Healey, Policy Manager, RE-Alliance.
At RE-Alliance we are often asked about end-of-life practices for solar photo-voltaic (PV) panels. Today, we can share some good news that we learnt last week at the Clean Energy Council’s excellent Large-Scale Solar Forum. We were particularly impressed by a presentation from Rob Gell, a Director from Solar Recovery Corporation (SRC).
SRC is an Australian-owned company partnering with a European Company, LME, who manufacture clean technology specifically built to process end-of-life solar PV panels. In Europe, they have a 12-year successful history with a 99+% material recovery rate.
SRC is not a recycling business. They are a material recovery business. They are committed to diverting all end-of-life solar PV panels from landfill streams and to the recovery of all the materials from decommissioned panels and reusing these materials in local Australian manufacturing streams.
This has the potential to create ongoing local jobs in a new industry and to deliver positive sustainable outcomes for our environment and human health. This technology is a real breakthrough in circular economy recovery capability in Australia.
SRC recovers material from end-of-life solar panels. The materials are separated — the technology does not use pyrolysis, chemicals, crushing or thermal processes to recover the materials.
The SRC technology uses a combination of mechanical, electrical and vacuum processes to recover materials from PV panels. The PV material recovery technology can process 180,000 panels per annum, representing over 3,500 metric tonnes of valuable resources, which are returned to manufacturing streams, reducing the need for mining these materials in Australia.
Materials recovered include: aluminium, copper, glass, plastic and silicon.
With the scale of roll-out of solar PV envisaged in the Australian Energy Market Operator’s (AEMO) Draft 2022 Integrated System Plan, there needs to be an end-of-life process for solar PV panels in place.
SRC’s end-of-life solar panel management policy is compliant with the European Union’s Waste from Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive for the transport, storage, handling and processing of end-of-life solar panels. It also aligns with the Victorian Government’s Waste Management Policy on e-waste.
Facilities in Biloela and Townsville in Queensland are now accepting end-of-life panels. SRC will establish materials recovery technology in coming months at both locations. Additionally, solar panel collection centres will be established in South East Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria in coming weeks, with the same model approach being used as has been implemented and refined in Townsville and Biloela.
The first processing machine is expected to arrive in June-July 2022. The first plant site for materials recovery will be in Queensland, with a national roll-out planned by the end of 2024.
The clean technology recovers 99+% from all panel types including Cadmium TE thin film panels. End-of-life compliant management and process fees are as per below:
Key challenges include diverting all end-of-life solar panels from the landfill stream, which will require facilitating a stakeholder transition whereby end-of-life panels are seen as a resource rather than waste.
We asked SRC how stakeholders can be involved. We can:
- Support diversion from landfill
- Ban end-of-life solar panels from landfills under local government control
- Support circular economy initiatives, including material recovery
- Use drop off and collection points for end-of-life solar panels
SRC are accepting end-of-life panels now. The first processing plant will be operational in Queensland in the next few months.
Thanks RE-Alliance for this great article.
RE-Alliance is a community-based organisation working to secure a renewable energy transformation filled with sustainable, long-term benefits for regional Australia. https://www.re-alliance.org.au/
Full Article : https://www.re-alliance.org.au/solar_recovery_corp
