How ageing photo voltaic panels can energy a second life
by Simon Mansfield
Sydney, Australia (SPX) Oct 09, 2025
Australia’s world-leading rooftop photo voltaic adoption is producing a mounting waste problem as many photovoltaic techniques are retired early and routed to landfill. A College of South Australia staff outlines how reuse requirements, incentives, testing and certification may lengthen panel lifetimes and shrink photo voltaic’s environmental footprint.
The examine led by UniSA PhD candidate Ishika Chhillar critiques technical, financial and regulatory boundaries to reuse and maps a mitigation pathway to construct a reputable secondary marketplace for used panels. Recycling alone is not going to preserve most end-of-life items out of landfill with out insurance policies and market alerts that make reuse sensible.
“The big-scale reuse of PV panels faces technical, financial and regulatory boundaries,” Chhillar says.
“There are numerous key challenges together with the low value of recent panels undercutting the resale PV panel market, a scarcity of incentives for reuse of the panels, totally different insurance policies for reuse throughout states, lack of legal responsibility for second hand installations and a restricted infrastructure for testing and refurbishing of used panels.”
“Trade, authorities, tutorial and customers all recognise that these boundaries can and have to be overcome, and that with the precise frameworks in place, Australia can lengthen the lifetime of its photo voltaic panels with true environmental and social advantages within the course of.”
With new panels getting cheaper, second-hand items battle to compete, and there are at the moment no rebates for putting in reused panels. Fragmented state guidelines, unclear legal responsibility and restricted testing/refurbishment capability additional suppress adoption, the authors word.
“At present, the dearth of any normal certification for used panels means consumers and installers have little to depend on in addition to a vendor’s phrase, however an official certification course of would change that,” she says.
“A reputable certification program ought to embrace standardized testing protocols for used panels. By bridging the belief hole, certification can rework reused panels from a dangerous choice right into a clear and standardised product class.
“One choice is certification being accompanied by a transparent, consumer-friendly grading system comparable to a gold, silver or bronze classification or a star-rating label to point the remaining effectivity and anticipated lifespan of a panel. This might permit consumers to make knowledgeable choices.”
Affiliate Professor Sukhbir Sandhu provides that digital traceability may streamline choices about reuse by recording every panel’s historical past and efficiency.
“If every photo voltaic panel’s historical past and efficiency information could possibly be recorded in a database accessible to consumers and regulators, it might dramatically scale back uncertainty,” she says.
“Trade consultants we spoke to for this examine proposed options starting from easy QR-code labels to dam chain-based platforms that observe a panel’s “digital passport” all through its life.
“This transparency would allow faster choices on whether or not a panel is match for reuse, with out requiring additional testing at every change of palms.”
“We now have different established practices in electronics, batteries and cellphones,” she says. “By embracing a structured method to the repurposing of photo voltaic panels, the renewable vitality sector can considerably lengthen the lifecycle of those sources, contributing to a extra sustainable, environment friendly and round financial system.”
Analysis Report:Certification for Solar Panel Reuse: A Systematic Review of Cross-Sector Practices and Gaps
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University of South Australia
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