Alberta is introducing new rules for solar-panel disposal Oct. 1, when panels will no longer be accepted in landfills and a province-wide recycling system will take effect.
Environment and Protected Areas Minister Grant Hunter announced the changes on Sept. 3 stating the program is intended to keep valuable materials out of landfills while shifting future recycling costs away from municipalities and taxpayers.
Buyers of qualifying solar panels will pay a $14 environmental fee beginning Oct. 1. Hunter said the money will fund the future collection and recycling of panels when they are no longer usable.
The fee will apply to panels measuring at least one square metre and will cover residential, commercial, industrial and utility-scale installations.
Hunter said the government will not receive revenue from the fee.
“There will not be any retroactiveness to this,” Hunter said. “So people who have panels prior to October 1st will not have to pay for that $14.”
According to provincial officials, Alberta’s system is Canada’s first formal solar-panel recycling program. It follows a provincial pilot project that examined ways to manage solar-panel waste and recover materials.
Solar panels contain glass, aluminum, silicon, silver and copper that can be recovered and potentially put into other products. Keeping those materials in circulation could reduce landfill waste while creating opportunities for recycling businesses in Alberta.
The province estimates that more than 95 per cent of Alberta’s existing solar panels are expected to reach the end of their useful lives by 2045, potentially creating as much as 72,700 tonnes of material.
Alberta’s minister of affordability and utilities, RJ Sigurdson, said the province needs to consider what happens to solar equipment throughout its entire life cycle as the use of renewable energy grows.
Alberta has nearly 2,000 megawatts of installed solar capacity, making it the second-largest provincial market in Canada behind Ontario, Sigurdson said.
Ed Gugenheimer, chief executive officer of the Alberta Recycling Management Authority, said putting the program in place before large volumes of panels reach retirement should allow recyclers to build the infrastructure needed to collect and process them.
He said the authority’s work includes developing a system that can recover materials from panels and return them to productive use.
Dan Carrocci, president of Sunset Renewable Asset Management Inc., said his company is developing technology to dismantle panels and determine how their individual components can be reused.
The panels present a processing challenge because multiple materials are bonded together in a large laminated structure, Carrocci said.
Sunset is working with the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology and other research partners on materials testing and potential applications for recovered components, he said.
Carrocci said aluminum can be processed for use in products such as automotive parts, while recovered glass could be incorporated into concrete products.
He said the company is currently achieving a recovery rate of about 95 per cent and expects to identify uses for all of a panel’s components by the end of the year.
Brooks was chosen as a location for the company’s work because of its proximity to several large solar projects in southern Alberta and its access to transportation and electricity infrastructure, Carrocci said.
During the question period, Hunter was asked how the province determined the $14 fee, given that some industry research has estimated lower recycling costs.
Hunter said the province considered the cost of transporting or storing panels outside Alberta, which he said can be about $40 per panel. He said the $14 fee is intended to help establish the infrastructure needed to make recycling more economical as the industry grows.
Hunter said the fee could eventually be lowered if the cost of recycling falls.
The Canadian Renewable Energy Association has raised concerns about the fee, arguing that the province has not publicly provided enough information to show how it arrived at the $14 amount.
The association has also argued that the fee could add costs for solar developers and consumers.
Hunter defended the charge, saying the province is planning for the waste that will be generated as Alberta’s solar industry expands.
“We can put them into 73,000 tonnes end-of-life solar panels into our dumps, or we can try to do what we can do for recycling them,” Hunter said.
The province says collecting the fee at the time of purchase will ensure money is available for end-of-life management instead of leaving disposal costs to be dealt with years later.
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