Page 2154 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 5 June 2019
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That this Assembly:
(1) notes that:
(a) rooftop solar for homes and businesses is growing at a faster rate in the ACT than anywhere else in Australia, with the 104.4 percent year-on-year growth rate easily the biggest in Australia;
(b) data collected by Green Energy Trading shows residential installations accounted for 18.4 megawatts of capacity, up from 9 megawatts in 2017; and
(c) there are no current plans for organised disposal, and the safe removal and recycling of solar panels and batteries as they come to end-of-life; and
(2) calls for the ACT Government to:
(a) undertake studies into how solar panels and batteries are disposed of in countries where solar is a major source of renewable energy;
(b) develop a Territory-wide plan for the safe disposal of both panels and batteries that does not involve additional costs on households and businesses or add to the increasing landfill problem in the ACT; and
(c) report to the Assembly by the last sitting week of November 2019 on what safe disposal options will be made available and when such arrangements will be in place.
I rise today to raise this very important issue about recycling of solar panels. Some of you may recall that this was the recent subject of a news story that there is no particular warranty for solar panels and no particularly good way of disposing of them.
The ACT has embraced solar technology with great gusto, as a combination of a commitment to 100 per cent renewable energy by 2020 and a range of incentives offered by the government and energy companies which have combined to ensure that rooftop solar for homes and businesses is growing at a faster rate in the ACT than anywhere else in Australia.
Data collected by Green Energy Trading shows that the territory added 22.8 megawatts of photovoltaic capacity in 2018, with residential installations accounting for 18.4 megawatts and commercial installations more than doubling on previous years. In 2018, 3,333 solar panel systems were registered for the small-scale technology certificates rebate, a jump from 1,666 in 2017. The $25 million next generation energy storage program is subsidising the rollout of about 36 megawatts of smart battery storage in up to 5,000 homes, and over 1,000 systems have been supported so far.
The global battery storage market is expected to be worth more than $400 billion by 2030. The government has suggested that the ACT could be the place for national and international businesses wanting to get a place in this emerging industry. It is an impressive story, notwithstanding that it has one small “pink batt moment”, with a registered battery storage provider already placed into voluntary administration.
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