Australia’s most recognisable solar recycler handed windup notice by Victorian court

On Wednesday, September 13, Australian solar recycler Reclaim PV was ordered to windup by the Supreme Court of Victoria. The windup notice was commenced by one of Reclaim PV’s competitors, Lotus Energy Recycling, with whom the company had a Brisbane stock dispute throughout 2023.

Reclaim PV had ceased trading by the end of 2022, and removed its website in the first half of 2023. The last version of that website, captured in February, said Reclaim PV’s partners included Canadian Solar, Qcells, Suntech, SunPower (Maxeon Solar Technologies), and Yingli. It also had a partnership with Australia’s only panel producer, Tindo Solar.

Strangely, Canadian Solar recently claimed 2.6 MW of end-of-life solar capacity was dealt with via its partnership with Reclaim in 2022. “Through a partnership with Reclaim PV, Canadian Solar reports that 7,865 pieces of modules totalling 2.6MW were diverted from landfill through end-of-life management activities over the course of the year,” Renew Economy’s coverage read in an article posted last month, August 2023.

Reclaim PV was perhaps Australia’s most recognised solar recycling company, and had a warehouse in the south of Adelaide, South Australia and Brisbane, Queensland. 

Clive Fleming, Reclaim’s founder, previously said the company folded under the pressure of years spent developing a recycling methodology in-house on a low budget, coupled with initiating manufacturer networks, establishing collection channels, and pitching for investors.

Solar recycling involves highly complex processes and is a nascent industry, meaning many financial and regulatory hurdles are yet to be resolved. 

Today, almost all of Australia’s handful of solar recyclers are yet to start processing, meaning they are still in the phase of collecting panels and stockpiling them. 

Once Reclaim PV ceased trading, it begun working with another recycler, Solar Recovery Corporation (SRC), to organise the offtake of its stock from its Queensland and South Australian warehouses. In May, Lotus Recycling began moving the Brisbane stock offsite after striking a deal with the warehouse landlords. 

Pv magazine published an in-depth look at Australia’s solar recycling, including its financial and regulatory hurdles, in its June edition.