Alberta consumers will pay an extra $14 on the upfront cost of a solar photovoltaic (PV) panel when a new environmental fee goes into effect on Oct. 1. Suppliers to the market will be responsible for collecting and remitting these funds to the Alberta Recycling Management Authority (ARMA) to cover the costs to retrieve reusable elements from spent crystalline silicon and thin-film solar panels and divert them from landfill.
Alberta is the first Canadian province to ban solar PV panels from landfill — a move that was enabled after the provincial government designated solar panels, wind turbine components and electric vehicle batteries in its electronics recycling regulation in 2024. As well, regulated producers of front-of-the-meter solar power that flows into the provincial electricity grid must obtain sign-off from the Alberta Utilities Commission (AUC) to verify that they have fulfilled financial security and conservation and land reclamation planning requirements spelled out in the provincial code of practice.
The new fee kicks in at a time when Alberta trails only Ontario for the volume of installed solar capacity within Canada. Business Renewables Centre Canada (BRC-Canada), a non-profit industry resource to support project development and non-utility power procurement, notes that Alberta accounts for the major share of 3.73 gigawatts (3,730 megawatts) of power purchase agreements signed Canada-wide between January 2019 and March 2025.
“Alberta has never been afraid to lead. We will not wait until mountains of dead solar panels are piling up in our landfills before acting,” says Grant Hunter, Alberta’s Minister of Environment and Protected Areas. “We are putting the system in place now to recover valuable materials, attract private investment and build a new recycling industry here in Alberta.”
Renewable energy advocates agree those are worthy objectives, but BRC-Canada is calling for a breakdown of how the fee was derived. The organization’s own research shows that Alberta has pegged it at least 139 per cent higher than similar levies collected in jurisdictions outside Canada. This could generate a significant pot of funds well in advance of the depicted widescale decommissioning of existing installations since that isn’t expected to unfold for at least another 20 to 25 years.
Fee structure
“While BRC supports the introduction of a recycling fee, we cannot support a punitive tax,” says Jorden Dye, director of BRC-Canada. “We’re disappointed to see the government saddle the industry with a disproportionate burden. Alberta is setting a price without accounting for salvage value or learning from comparative jurisdictions.”
Thomas Mueller, president and chief executive officer of the Canada Green Building Council (CAGBC), similarly endorses the stewardship approach that considers products and materials across their full life cycle and plans for responsible end-of-life management. However, he argues that the overall economics and long-term value of solar PV installations should also be considered.
“Environmental fees charged for renewable energy technology can affect project costs and influence investment decisions in building and community development projects,” Mueller observes. “Applying environmental fees should be done equitably to avoid disadvantaging clean energy technology against conventional solutions such as gas boilers, air conditioning equipment or thermostats, which can contain hazardous or greenhouse gas warming substances.”
ARMA’s explanatory overview describes the $14 benchmark as a “blended fee” to account for currently installed solar panels and those that will be added to the provincial inventory in the future. The devising formula reflects the estimated volume of solar panels to be decommissioned by 2060 based on forecasted end-of-life dates, along with the recycling program’s projected operating and capital costs and counterbalancing revenue from recovered materials. It also builds in a “program reserve” component.
There is no further delineation of how the $14 is apportioned to each of those considerations. Solar thermal panels will not be subject to the fee even though they also contain the glass, aluminum and copper that are flagged as attractive commodities to be recovered from solar PV panels. Nor does the document address the global examples that BRC-Canada cites.
“As this is the first stewardship program for solar panel recycling in North America, there are no other environmental fees in place currently for comparison,” ARMA states.
In a Sept. 3 communication about the new fee, the Alberta government frames it in a small-scale context, suggesting that it will add $280 or less than 1.5 per cent of the total cost of the average residential installation. On a larger scale, BRC-Canada estimates the fee will boost the start-up costs of the average solar project by about $1 million.
“This approach adds costs and red tape to an industry that has helped diversify Alberta’s economy and lower electricity prices for Albertans,” Dye maintains.
Reporting and remitting
Solar panel installers and all entities that convey the product into the Alberta market — including manufacturers, wholesalers, distributors and retailers — must register with ARMA by Oct. 1. Regulated power producers are also obligated to register and provide information about all contributors to their solar panel supply chain, and they may subsequently be required to directly report and remit fees to ARMA if they secure product from outside the province or a non-registered supplier.
Fees will be collected through two channels related to how ARMA classifies suppliers. Those designated as remitter suppliers will levy the fee directly to their customers, report the amount and submit it to ARMA on a monthly basis, beginning this fall.
Point-of-purchase suppliers pay the fee on the inventory they purchase from those remitter suppliers (typically manufacturers, wholesalers or distributors) and then recoup it from the price charged to consumers. They do not have to report transactions to ARMA.
“The entity that will be responsible for remitting the fee will be determined by ARMA during the registration process,” the agency advises. “ARMA’s registration process is designed to ensure a level playing field for all suppliers so that the fee is remitted at the correct point in the supply chain and to avoid the risk of double-remitting fees.”
For now, ARMA is promising to emphasize education ahead of enforcement while the industry gets accustomed to complying with the new rules. However, it warns that its financial compliance and audit system will catch suppliers who fail to properly remit fees, and it does have the authority to confer financial penalties. Under Alberta’s administrative penalty regulation that can be a base fine of $1,000 to $5,000 depending on the seriousness of the contravention and the degree of environmental detriment, along with a daily fine in the same dollar range for each day a contravention continues.
Diversion details pending
On the collection and materials recovery side of the exercise, spent solar panels will be accepted as of Oct. 1. ARMA has indicated that a list of its approved service providers will be posted on its website, but that information was not readily apparent as of mid-September.
Stakeholders in the industrial, commercial, institutional (ICI) and power-producing sectors are instructed to deal directly with ARMA’s registered service providers, and are promised pick-up services at their properties for accumulations of at least 100 panels. They’re also warned that they may be charged service fees if they engage service providers that aren’t on ARMA’s approved list. Homeowners and small businesses will be able to drop off spent solar panels at designated depots.
Work is still in progress on other operational elements of the new recycling and materials recovery program. A future working group “consisting of industry experts, regulators, recyclers and other key stakeholders” is expected to provide input on approaches for sorting decommissioned solar panels for reuse versus recycling.
“The opportunity for reuse will not impact the environmental fee that is charged on the panel. The environmental fee is remitted at the time of sale, but there will not be an applicable fee to a panel that is re-sold after being diverted for reuse. Any funding and/or incentives available related to the reuse pathway will be shared once available.,” ARMA confirms. “The objective is to build a made-in-Alberta solution for solar panel recycling. In the initial phase of the program, there may be some downstream processing that occurs outside of the province while in-province recycling capabilities are established.”
