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In another step towards its national rollout, Solar Recovery Corporation has partnered with Victoria’s Gannawarra Shire Council to provide free local solar panel recycling services.
Gannawarra Shire, in the Loddon Murray region of Victoria, is situated around 3 hours’ drive from Melbourne. It’s home to around 10,683 people; close to half of whom live in Kerang. It’s also home to a lot of solar panels considering its population.
“The installation of photovoltaic systems, such as solar panels, inverters and batteries, is occurring in record numbers nationally, including here in the Gannawarra,” said Council CEO Tom O’Reilly.
When we checked in back in July/August 2018, there were around 719 small scale solar power systems within Kerang’s postcode; representing 3.83MW of capacity. That has grown to approximately 1,008 small-scale systems with a collective capacity of 6,803 kW as at the end of July this year.
Across Gannawarra Shire, there are around 2,000 PV systems installed; the vast majority of which are less than 10kW.
“With solar panels having an average lifespan of 21 years, it is important that systems are in place now to accept the recycling of these items, which are classified as e-waste and cannot be disposed of via landfill,” stated Mr. O’Reilly.
Good quality solar panels should have a much longer life, but much shorter in the case of crap solar – and unfortunately there has been plenty of that in Australia. So, there’s already a need for recycling options; particularly given Victoria’s e-waste landfill ban.
While some Councils charge for panel disposal services – particularly if they are to end up in landfill – unwanted modules will be accepted at Gannawarra Shire Council’s transfer stations situated at Cohuna, Kerang, Lalbert and Quambatook at no cost. The panels will then be shipped to a Solar Recovery Corporation facility for processing.
Solar Recovery Corporation is among several players to have kicked of module recycling/ materials recovery operations in Australia, and boasts a 99+% material recovery rate.
One of the interesting aspects of its recovery process is shredding, crushing, hydrometallurgy, chemicals, thermal processing or pyrolysis apparently aren’t used for materials separation. Mechatronic equipment separates the aluminium frame, junction box and cables from the panel, and further robotics complete the disassembly and sorting.
The company has partnered with La Mia Energia (LME), which has been recovering end-of-life solar panels in Europe for 12 years.
“Solar Recovery Corporation will take all solar panels earmarked for recycling, separate all materials and pack them for re-use in different industry sectors,” Mr O’Reilly said.
By “all”, it’s not clear if that includes panels dropped off by installers. A similar recent arrangement with City of Greater Bendigo doesn’t allow for installer drop-off, and also doesn’t include broken or smashed modules.
While Gannawarra may be small-potatoes for Solar Recovery Corporation currently, perhaps it has its eye on the future in establishing a foothold there. The Shire is also home to the 60MW Gannawarra Solar Farm, which commenced operations in 2017. There are a bunch of other big PV projects still on the board for the LGA, all of which will need a panel disposal service at some point.
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Michael caught the solar power bug after purchasing components to cobble together a small off-grid PV system in 2008. He's been reporting on Australian and international solar energy news ever since.
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