As solar panels near the end of their life, researchers are racing to tackle the mounting waste problem before it undermines the industry’s clean energy promise. Casey McGuire tells more.

Australia is racing toward a low-carbon future and solar panels have become a symbol of progress, sprouting on rooftops across the country. But beneath this green success story lies an emerging challenge: The growing volume of decommissioned solar panels. Many are being decommissioned well before their 30-year lifespan, raising urgent questions about sustainability and waste management.

The Australian Energy Council predicts that PV waste could exceed 280,000 tonnes by the end of 2025. In response, New South Wales and the Smart Energy Council (SEC) have proposed a national product stewardship scheme for solar waste, with agreement from multiple states to work towards a coordinated approach.

University of South Australia (UniSA) researcher and PhD student Ishika Chhillar has always been passionate about sustainability and noticed an irony in this trend.

“The waste problem is quite big and moving towards net zero, solar panels are supposed to help, which makes it difficult,” she says.

“We’ve talked to 46 key informants regarding this, and we found there to be technical barriers, like infrastructure for testing and refurbishing, and economic barriers with new panels being backed by subsidies. This makes them relatively cheaper than second-hand panels, with all the testing costs, and there’s a regulatory barrier with no national framework.”

The SEC curated a joint statement on behalf of 60 organisations within the industry, which is calling on the Federal Government to stand up and make a mandatory national product stewardship scheme. When SEC executive general manager Darren Johannesen met with federal ministers and politicians in Canberra, the most common theme across the state representatives was that it was a federal problem. He was pleased but the strong levels of support for action and a general acceptance that the issue is a federal problem.

If the Federal Government weren’t to act now, Darren says that New South Wales and Minister Penny Sharpe would lead the charge with state-based legislation. The risk, though, is that others may not follow suit. Similarly to the Container Deposit Scheme, where all states have one, but they all have slightly different systems.

PV Industries is just one of the solar recycling companies based in Australia that do everything onshore and have been since 2018. All their equipment is made in Australia, just an hour and a half south of Sydney in Wollongong. The process begins by de-framing the solar panel, which also removes the junction boxes and the cable, which make up 15% of a panel by weight. The next step in the process is de-glassing, which removes most of the glass from the panel, and the glass makes up about 75% of a panel by weight.

At that point, 90% of the solar panel has been recovered. They’ve got the glass, the aluminium frames, the copper cable and the junction box off, and then what’s left is a one-millimetre-thick solar panel with the cells intact. That sounds pretty efficient to me.

PV Industries co-founder James Petesic addresses the glaring issue shadowing Australia and how PV Industries’ methods are benefiting not only the nation, but on a global scale.

“No company in the world is extracting silver and silicon from solar panels at a commercial scale,” James explains.

“Plenty of people are doing it at lab scale and the research and development are continuing. However, for the industry to be doing it at a commercial scale, you need large volumes.”

This industry is competing with the offshore reuse of solar panels in inverted commas. The statistics vary because it’s super hard to track how many panels get exported offshore because it contravenes the Basel Convention, and hence, it’s illegal. James says that anywhere between 10-15% of solar panels that are decommissioned are recycled in Australia.

“Approximately 85% of solar panels that are coming off roofs are put in a container and are sent offshore under the guise of reuse. It’s quite short-sighted and it’s definitely threatening the sustainability and the viability of our industry,” he adds.

Sending panels to Africa and the Middle East carries significant risks. Valuable materials such as aluminium and silver, critical for keeping future metal prices stable and ensuring resource availability, are often lost. Even panels that arrive broken or fail within a few years may never reach a recycling facility. Instead, many end up discarded in fields, where children sometimes burn plastics to extract copper, creating hazardous conditions.

Every solar panel carries a unique barcode under the glass, making it possible to trace its origin. In fact, investigators have scanned panels in these countries and traced them back to homes in Australia, revealing just how far the problem spreads.

Awareness of recycling options is crucial, particularly because installers often become the “leakage point” when panels are exported overseas. If a local collector pays $5 per panel while an installer tries to charge $10 for recycling, the installer risks losing business.

Education is key, and by framing recycling as a value-added service, installers can charge for the service to recycle a resident’s panels, remain price competitive and offer a point of difference to others. For example, adding $10 to the cost of each panel allows the installer to offer responsible, onshore recycling, giving customers peace of mind that their panels won’t be sent overseas. In the context of a typical 10-15-panel installation, the additional cost of around $300 is a small fraction of the total system price, making sustainable disposal both feasible and affordable.

“You’re then giving that customer a point of difference to select you. You’re being different from your other competitors, and you’re saying, we’re not going to dispose of our panels, we’re going to recycle them,” James says.

“If you advertise a responsible end-of-life panel option as a point of difference for your business, you would like to think that a resident or home owner upgrading their renewable asset would also like to do the right thing, it would help the business.”

The Clean Energy Council (CEC) has long called for a robust regulatory approach to solar product stewardship, one designed with input from manufacturers, installers, universities, regulators, community groups, government and waste management organisations to cover the full life cycle of the product.

Consultation began in 2023 by the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water to design a recycling program for solar waste, but little progress has been made beyond the initial direction paper, despite a mountain of work behind the scenes, including regular meetings with recyclers to understand the costs and margins. This underscores the importance of an industry co-design process, where stakeholders across energy and recycling can help shape an effective, sustainable framework.

“Solar panels are highly recyclable, with more than 95% of the product able to be recovered in the recycling process. We encourage the NSW Government to consider a product stewardship scheme that incorporates all elements of the life cycle, including design, manufacturing, reuse and recycling,” CEC general manager – distributed energy, Con Hristodoulidis says.

“There is keen interest among our members in developing an effective model for a mandatory product stewardship scheme, which could be leveraged to support a domestic manufacturing industry and the Federal Government’s Future Made in Australia ambitions.”

The industry is working with the Federal Government to help create a more balanced and consistent system, but regulation is not yet mandatory. Queensland has already piloted a stewardship scheme, and New South Wales has expressed interest in following suit.

Queensland piloted its solar recycling initiative in 2024 to establish collection and recycling sites for old solar panels, aiming to divert them from landfills and recover valuable materials. This program involved 15 pilot sites across the state, a $3.5 million investment. The pilot was designed to provide critical logistics and materials recovery data essential for the development of a state-based or National Product Stewardship scheme. The pilot collected panels from small-scale, commercial, and grid-scale solar farms. The pilot wrapped up in May 2025, with the final report due to be released shortly.

While progress is being made at the state level, experts argue that a national approach is essential. Without it, inconsistencies between states will persist, allowing, for instance, someone to simply drive from Albury to Wodonga and dispose of panels in Victoria, where different rules apply.

“The industry as a whole, including the SEC, expressed a clear position with the Federal Government about establishing a product stewardship scheme, which is effectively like a bottles and cans scheme for solar panels,” James says.

“It would mean that panels have to be recycled, and a portion of the solar panel cost upfront would go into a fund that would then be paid out to recyclers like us at the point of recycling, which means it’s free for the customer on the way out.”

In August 2025, the Energy and Climate Change Ministerial Council (ECMC) discussed the need for mandated stewardship arrangements, with NSW and the Commonwealth leading investigations into practical models. The NSW EPA began engaging with industry, including manufacturers, to inform initial recommendations due in early 2026.

“There is strong demand in Australia for facilities to recycle PV waste; however, the upfront costs to build this capacity at scale require coordination between industry and governments at the federal, state and territory level to make this a reality,” Con says.

There are actually seven plants operating in Australia and the issue is that the plants are unable to get access to the feedstock they need due to the costs of logistics, as it’s cheaper to send it to local landfill. This makes it near impossible to get to scale, and without scale, recyclers can’t get to profit. Without a pathway to profit, it’s extremely difficult to secure improvement, and a product stewardship scheme solves this.

The management of end-of-life or replaced solar panels differs across Australian states, highlighting the need for a national product stewardship scheme. A federal approach could ease the burden on installers, provide a consistent framework and ensure a least-cost system so consumers don’t pay more than necessary.

Victoria is leading the way with state-level initiatives, including a landfill ban on PV waste. The Solar Victoria Notice to Market outlines mandatory requirements and end-of-life recommendations for retailers and installers participating in the Solar Homes Program.

“There is currently no program in Australia to regulate the resale and re-installation of second-hand solar panels; however, industry pilot programs are well underway, with the NSW EPA funding a 100kW demonstration system comprised entirely of reused panels in Wagga Wagga,” Con says.

“When responsibly sent overseas with reputable partner organisations, the reuse of panels can also support remote communities unable to transition to clean energy and extend the product’s lifetime of energy generation.”

Australia boasts one of the highest rates of rooftop solar adoption, with many panels reaching the end of their life and often being decommissioned well before the 30-year mark.

“Things like the need for traceability tools. If we know it’s past details, like whether there’s been any previous repairing of the panels being done or the age of the panels, that helps when it is decommissioned,” Ishika says.

“If we know the details about the panels, and you can, based on that, you can judge if they still have enough life left in them. They then go for testing and refurbishing, and once panels are bought for testing and reuse, we can divide those panels into gold, silver and bronze, depending on how much life and efficiency is left in them.”

The certification label could work much like the star ratings on household appliances, giving consumers a clear idea of a panel’s remaining efficiency. Panels with 80% or more of their health efficiency could be rated gold and used on residential rooftops. Those with 64-79% efficiency might be silver, suitable for off-grid or community projects. Panels falling below 60% could be rated bronze and sent for recycling.

Many people are unaware of what happens to solar panels at the end of their life, highlighting a critical need for public education on responsible disposal and recycling.

“I wish more people knew what actually happened to their panels. If people knew that their panel was going to get put in a container and sent to a developing nation where it could either pose some safety risks or be disposed of in a tip,” James says.

“A panel not properly packaged is most likely going to be broken along the way, so the end user in that developing nation will never benefit from that panel in the first place.”

In some cases, panels exported to developing countries would arrive with 50-60% already broken, leaving them to sit abandoned in fields overseas. This highlights the need for legislation like the Basel Convention, to which Australia is a signatory, limiting the offshore export of waste.

Even when panels are sent to recycling facilities, the process is often partial, with some recyclers focusing solely on extracting aluminium, discarding the remaining materials. While technically recycling, this approach misses the opportunity to recover other valuable components.

“Old solar panels can power the future, but that’s only if we treat them as valuable resources and not waste,” Ishika says.

“With certification, digital traceability and supportive policy, we can make the second-hand solar market just as trusted and widespread as second-hand cars. We trust second-hand cars if they’re tested, and one day we can have that trust and widespread use of second-hand solar panels as well.”

A key component of the solar panel that James identified was the silver. While silver recovery from solar panels is not yet happening at a commercial scale, experts warn that the stakes are high. If the industry doesn’t begin extracting silver from decommissioned panels by 2050, up to 90% of the world’s silver supply could be consumed by solar panel manufacturing alone. Currently, about 20% of global silver production goes into new solar panels, but without recycling, the demand, and consequently the price, could skyrocket in the coming decades.

Solar panels, designed to reduce carbon emissions, are quietly contributing to a mounting waste problem. Her research explores how reuse and efficient recycling could not only extend the life of panels but also provide affordable energy solutions for low-income households and off-grid projects.

The research team at UniSA has identified several potential solutions. By engaging with industry to understand the barriers, they’re aiming to make solar panel end-of-life testing faster and more cost-effective so that recycled panels don’t end up more expensive than new ones.

Second, they aim to make testing faster and more cost-effective, ensuring that recycled panels don’t end up more expensive than new ones.

UniSA is also advocating for a national framework for panel recycling through a product stewardship scheme. While Victoria has already banned panels from landfill, other states have yet to follow suit.

When Ishika began her PhD, she noticed that conversations in Australia largely focused on recycling, with reuse still a relatively new concept. Recently, reuse has started to gain traction. What stood out most to her was the absence of a national framework. A gap she saw as a key link connecting all of her findings.

“If we have a national framework, it becomes easier to create a reuse value chain and to have a proper infrastructure once the entire nation is ready to accept and work together with it,” Ishka explains.

“The goal is to extend their useful life, create a circular economy and instead of them ending up in landfill to be used, if not on the rooftop, then in an off-grid setting or alternative uses.”

Reuse was a central plank of the SEC’s work in Queensland, which it did in partnership with CSIRO and Second Life Solar, where it also ran the world’s largest reuse study. It has been at the centre of the conversations for some time, and the issues are complex, including that due to technology advancements, new modules produce not only a lot more energy, but they also use a lot less critical minerals to do it, such as material from a ten-year-old module if recovered correctly.

Even without this, the economics are currently against making it work at scale, but the CSIRO and PV Labs are working on ways to improve the safety testing to make it cheaper and faster.

Darren from the SEC predicts that if the Federal Government were to act and establish a national framework today, Australia would still be two to three years away from it being implemented. The longer Australia waits to implement an appropriate method for dealing with end-of-life solar panels, the longer we’ll see valuable resources go to waste.