NSW EPA awards $7 million in funding to five Circular Solar projects
By Tamanna Wadhwani 14 July 2022
NSW EPA has announced more than $7 million in grants for five Circular Solar projects to manage the growing waste of solar panels and battery systems.
The NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA) recently announced the five projects that were awarded funding under the Circular Solar grants program. With the increase in the use of solar panels across Australia in efforts to move toward renewables, the volume of waste solar panels and battery storage systems is also expected to rapidly increase over the next decade.
NSW is forecasted to generate around 3,000-10,000 tonnes per year of waste solar PV panels and battery storage systems by 2025. To future-proof our renewable energy driven lifestyle, the NSW Government has provided grants to five projects that are embedding circular economy frameworks in the end-of-life management of solar panels and batteries.
The five projects that were granted this award are:
Blue Tribe Co. - This project will develop a whole-of-supply chain business model and secondary marketplace to divert serviceable decommissioned solar panels from landfill to community solar gardens for reuse.
PV Industries - Their project promotes the reuse, repair and refurbishment of solar panels and inverters, through end-of-life processing.
Scipher Technologies - The Advanced PV recycling project will establish a solar panel recycling plant in Albury with aims to employ the most commercially proven solar panel processing technology globally, achieving a commodity recovery rate of more than 90%.
TES-AMM Australia - Through collaboration, this project will support already emerging infrastructure and propose circular lithium-ion battery reuse and recycling. This is set to be a first-of-its-kind facility in NSW.
University of New South Wales - This will be a research and development project to develop highly efficient, mobile and flexible recycling technologies to recover valuable metals, glass, and silicon from end-of-life solar panels.
To learn more about how these projects will keep solar panels out of landfill, visit NSW EPA Circular Solar grants program.
Planet Ark does not take responsibility for the accuracy of the original information and encourages readers to check the references before using this information for their own purposes.
Tamanna moved from India to Australia to pursue a degree in environmental science and conservation biology. After learning about the concept of a circular economy in 2020, she worked with various organisations in this sector and is interested in solving complex climate change and waste management problems. She loves to communicate with people about all things sustainability or animals. Outside of work, Tamanna is a budding hip hop dancer who also loves travelling, cat cuddles and reading.
