The Smart Energy Council (SEC), Australia’s peak body for solar, storage, and renewable energy, has welcomed the NSW Government’s proposed mandatory solar panel recycling scheme as a vital step toward a circular economy.
The SEC works closely with governments on renewable energy stewardship and supports keeping valuable materials – including silicon, silver, and copper – out of landfill to drive local recycling and remanufacturing.
“The NSW Government should be commended for taking decisive action on solar recycling. We look forward to contributing to this consultation, building on our work with state and territory governments across the country and our world leading solar recycling pilots in Queensland,” SEC Chief Executive David McElrea said.
“NSW’s proposal provides a strong foundation to ensure millions of panels are recovered rather than discarded. That said, the industry is still waiting for the National Solar Panel Recycling Pilot to commence, which is intended to inform the development of scheme design with real life, timely data.”
Mr McElrea cautioned that state-level initiatives must be matched by a unified national framework led by the Federal Government to provide much-needed industry stability and investor confidence to scale processing capacity, and prevent free-riders and market fragmentation.
“Ideally, states and territories won’t have to go it alone, because solar supply chains do not end at a border. A patchwork of rules will be more inefficient and costly for consumers, business, industry and authorities.”
“We are long overdue for action on solar recycling – we already have the know-how. NSW is showing leadership, but unless transitioned into a Commonwealth scheme, over 70 per cent of Australia’s decommissioned solar panels will remain uncaptured outside NSW.”
“The Federal Government has to step up and deliver a national product stewardship framework to provide the scale, consistency, and certainty Australia needs.”
The Smart Energy Council will submit a formal response to the NSW Government’s draft regulation and issues paper.
Media contact: media@smartenergy.org.au – 0448 972 192
