Western Australia is building the collection and recycling pathway for end-of-life solar panels on its own timetable, and the businesses that install the panels are being asked to describe how it should work. The consultation closes on 9 September 2026.
The state committed $17.8 million in the 2026-27 budget to recovering solar panels and embedded batteries under the Remade in WA program. The allocation splits three ways: $13 million to establish end-of-life solar panel collection and recycling pathways, $3 million to roll out embedded battery collection at local government facilities, and $1.8 million to administer both.
The Department of Water and Environmental Regulation administers the program. It has commissioned the Smart Energy Council to carry out stakeholder engagement and technical advisory services, and that engagement runs through targeted discussions, industry roundtables and surveys covering installers, recyclers, repair operators, utilities, local governments, mining companies and safety specialists. The survey now circulating to Western Australian installers is part of that commissioned work rather than an industry body canvassing its own membership, which is the distinction that determines whether responding is worth an installer's time.
No scheme has been decided, and the survey says so
The engagement is at baseline assessment stage. The department's own material describes the current phase as establishing that baseline, and the survey asks how a future stewardship scheme could operate. Neither commits the state to a scheme, to a levy, or to a particular collection model.
That distinction matters because the language around solar recovery has been running ahead of the decisions. A recycling fee has been publicly floated as one answer to Australia's growing panel waste volumes, and it is a proposal under discussion, not a settled instrument. Anyone quoting a future disposal cost to a customer today is quoting a guess.
The national pilot the state work would have followed is suspended
The Commonwealth announced $24.7 million in January 2026 for a National Solar Panel Recycling Pilot, intended to collect up to 250,000 panels from around 100 sites and generate the national data set on collection, transport and payment that a scheme would be designed against.
The tender to appoint a pilot administrator closed on 26 April 2026. Three weeks later the department suspended the procurement, a step required under the Government Procurement (Judicial Review) Act 2018 while a procurement complaint is investigated. The department has said it remains committed to the pilot. It has not published a restart date, and none had been published as of the most recent reporting in July.
New South Wales is separately leading a regulatory impact statement intended to inform a national scheme across 2026 and 2027.
Removal and disposal are becoming a costed line, not an afterthought
Western Australia has one of the highest rates of rooftop solar uptake in the country and a first generation of systems now passing twenty years. The state's first dedicated solar panel recycling facility, Cyber Recycling, can receive more than 2,500 end-of-life panels, which sets the scale of existing local processing against the volume arriving.
The practical consequence for installers is that removal and disposal are becoming a costed line on a replacement job rather than an afterthought. Systems installed between 2011 and 2014 under the earlier rebate rounds are the cohort now being replaced, and every replacement generates a set of panels that has to go somewhere. Where they go, who pays, and whether the cost is recovered at the point of sale or through a scheme are the questions the current engagement is asking.
Installers with a view on transport distance, regional collection points, storage and handling, or the labour cost of removal have a four-week window in which that view is being formally collected.
Sources
- Department of Water and Environmental Regulation, "Remade in WA: advancing solar panel recovery and recycling in Western Australia", last updated 6 August 2026.
- Smart Energy Council, Western Australian installer survey notice, 25 August 2026. Survey closes 9 September 2026.
- pv magazine Australia, "Western Australia invests $17.8 million into solar panel and embedded battery recycling", 5 June 2026.
- RenewEconomy, "Australia's solar PV recycling plans on hold after flagship pilot project suspended", 17 July 2026.
- Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, National Solar Panel Recycling Pilot.
