Australian scientists bag financing to investigate reusing unwanted photovoltaic panels

• Grant funding has actually been awarded to a project in Australia that will certainly check out the potential revenue streams and consumer rate of interest being used solar PV panels.

A team from the University of Queensland will certainly seek to determine market or policy barriers to reusing, repurposing and recycling panels after securing AU$ 42,869 (US$ 29,478) in funding from Energy Consumers Australia, which represents residential and also local business energy consumers.

The project additionally intends to recognize opportunities to use a circular economy for panels to better include consumers that can not presently gain access to solar as a result of monetary constraints.

There is "large potential" if a circular economic situation for solar panels can be unlocked, said Energy Consumers Australia CEO Lynne Gallagher.

" This will not just lower waste, yet it is additionally possibly a way for those that can not pay for the expense of new solar PV equipment to create their own energy at an extra sensible price.".

According to Energy Consumers Australia, recovering discarded solar panels to reuse, repurpose or recycle is a billion-dollar opportunity, but several panels are changed well before their useful life as more affordable and much more effective models come onto the market.

The organisation said that along with the unfavorable ecological effects, this leads to a "substantial missed out on opportunity" to supply access to PV to consumers not currently able to, in addition to cost financial savings to existing PV owners, via panel reclaiming and also repurposing.

To day, international solar panel recycling efforts have actually been erratic, with some proactive suppliers taking charge, according to Emilie Oxel O'Leary, Chief Executive Officer of Green Clean Solar, an US company concentrating on the removal as well as disposal of waste materials and recyclable materials from PV plants.

Writing in a feature article, released in the most recent edition of PV Tech Power, she claimed: "We are witnessing a shift toward a circular solar economy thanks to varying degrees of initiative and action.".

The University of Queensland project was among the 6 recipients of greater than AU$ 429,000 in grant funding from Energy Consumers Australia, with other recipients focusing on areas consisting of measures to promote energy-efficient housing, to name a few.