These busted solar panels are an early example of a problem — and an opportunity

In a sprawling industrial building in Brooks, Alta., about two hours east of Calgary, is a former pheasant hatchery that's now stacked waist-high with thousands of dusty, damaged solar panels. 

Dan Carrocci, who's worked in renewable energy construction for more than a decade, has long been troubled by the lack of end-of-life options for this infrastructure and is stockpiling the old panels in hopes of developing a commercially viable means of recycling them. 

He's now built up a stash of nearly 10,000 panels that have been damaged during manufacturing, pummelled by hail or banged up during installation. 

"I call it the 'big green elephant' of renewable energy — is the waste material," said Carrocci, president of Sunset Renewable Asset Management. 

Installation of solar and wind power is on the rise, but according to a 2021 report from the University of Ottawa think-tank the Smart Prosperity Institute, decommissioned solar panels and wind turbine blades often end up sitting in storage or being sent to landfill. 

Much of the wind and solar infrastructure in this country is fairly new, but by 2050 the Smart Prosperity Institute said conservative estimates suggest Canada could see a cumulative 365,000 to 470,000 tonnes of expired solar panel waste and 4.5 million tonnes of wind turbine waste, though the institute said the total will be much higher if the country plans to hit its net-zero targets.

"Just producing that much waste, landfilling it going forward, it's not really a sustainable solution," said Geoff McCarney, the institute's senior research director. 

While it's critical to keep ramping up use of renewables, he said, there's concern "we're creating other environmental problems while trying to address the climate problem."

Some businesses are looking at this looming source of waste with dollar signs in their eyes, and experts say there could be a big opportunity for companies working now to develop systems to dismantle and recycle panels and turbines at the end of their lifespan. 

"I think companies that are thinking about recycling now … are really going to be in boom times in 20 years or so," said Evan Wilson, a vice-president with the Canadian Renewable Energy Association (CanREA).

Both solar panels and wind turbines are between 85 and 90 per cent recyclable, according to CanREA, but that doesn't mean it's an easy process.

"They're recyclable for sure, or at least most of the materials are recyclable," said Warren Mabee, director of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Policy at Queen's University. "But it's challenging and it might cost more than you get back in the value of the material that you're recycling."

The Alberta Recycling Management Authority got an early taste at how tricky these materials can be when, in 2020, it started accepting solar panels as electronics waste through a pilot project.

 "We soon realized it's a very difficult material to recycle," said Ed Gugenheimer, the authority's CEO.