Reducing waste and cutting costs one solar panel at a time

But, with almost 30 per cent of Australian households now using photovoltaics, there's a growing problem with what to do with discarded panels.

Thankfully, Repurposing for Resilience has some answers.

A grassroots initiative founded by South Coast electricians and installers concerned about the impact of disused panels, they aimed to reduce both the waste and the cost associated with renewable energy.

"The idea is that we basically reuse and repurpose panels, though reuse is probably what we really want to see happen," said Lisa Cornthwaite, one of the founding members of Repurposing for Resilience.

The prime motive for solar panels being discarded despite being fully functional is the driven by the STC rebate incentive scheme and installation standards oversight, which rewards customers and installers for installing new panels.

The existing systems need to be brought to current standards if retained, as the cost for this is prohibitive the result is that existing systems are simply discarded to make room for new subsidised panels.

"As contractors, once we touch a system and upgrade it, we're responsible for bringing it up to current standard," said Ms Cornthwaite.

"We'll just put in a separate system, and if they don't have enough room, we take it off and bring it down."

Older - though still functioning - panels were generally disassembled for their aluminium, silver, copper and glass, or, worse, taken to landfill.

However, Repurposing for Resilience found that with a bit of testing and TLC, 75 per cent of the panels they received were ready for service once again.

"For everything that we resell, we actually apply a warranty, and that's a game changer," said Ms Cornthwaite.

"It instils confidence in a second-hand market."

Anything the technicians couldn't repair and reuse was repurposed and transformed into artwork or furniture.

"But then there's panels that come in that are still sexy and aesthetically pleasing, but they're not up to manufacturer specs, so we repurpose those panels into other stuff like tables."

There was a small number of panels, however, that couldn't be either reused or repurposed.

But, the group was looking into ways to process those unusable panels as well.

"The ones that are broken, physically broken, are the only ones that we can't do anything with," she said.

"We want to be able to open up our own industrial materials recovery plant, which would close the loop for the whole South Coast."

To raise awareness for their initiatives, the group recently invited the community to their Moruya facility to explore some solutions.

"We basically network with the rest of the industry and say, hey look, we, you know, instead of dropping off your panels to the tip, which costs you $10 per panel, bring them here for free," said Ms Cornthwaite.

"We run on the smell of an oily rag, so if we can resell them, that money will be put back into all the services we offer the community, like the free workshops."