Alberta Bans Solar Panels From Landfills, Adds $14 Recycling Fee

The Alberta government is launching a solar panel recycling program that will ban panels from landfills and add a $14 environmental fee to every new panel supplied in the province.

Beginning Oct. 1, Alberta will become the first province in Canada—and jurisdiction in North America—to operate a solar panel recycling program, the government says.

The province says the program is needed because more than 95 percent of solar panels currently installed in Alberta are expected to reach the end of their useful life by 2045, generating about 72,000 tonnes of material that could otherwise end up in landfills.

“Albertans who want a green solution for electricity also want a green solution for end-of-life of solar panels,” Grant Hunter, Environment and Protected Areas minister, said at a Sept. 3 news conference.

“Throwing valuable materials into a landfill doesn’t make environmental or economic sense,” he said.

$14 Fee to Fund Recycling

The $14 environmental fee will also take effect Oct. 1 and will apply only to panels supplied on or after that date. It will not be retroactive, the province said.

The fee will fund the collection, transportation, and recycling of both older panels and newly supplied ones, ensuring purchasers—not taxpayers or municipalities—pay for recycling.

The government estimates a “typical residential installation” will include 20 panels, adding $280 to the overall installation cost, or less than 1.5 percent.

Hunter said the $14 fee was chosen after consultations with the Alberta Recycling Management Authority, which will oversee the program.

He said shipping panels to the United States for storage or recycling currently costs about $40 per panel, and the province wants to establish enough volume and infrastructure to bring those costs down.

The fee will not go to the provincial government, he said.

The province said solar panels contain valuable materials including glass, aluminum, silicon, silver, and copper that can be recovered and used in other products.

Alberta has nearly 2,000 megawatts of installed solar capacity, the second-highest amount in Canada behind Ontario, said Affordability and Utilities Minister RJ Sigurdson. If all of the panels were laid flat, they would cover an area equivalent to about 6,000 National Hockey League rinks.

“That’s a massive number of solar panels that could eventually end up in a landfill,” Sigurdsson said.