It will only make sense if the per cost panel is less than certain number (if my math is correct it should be $175), but if the panel cost is over $175 then even with more sales taxes in other provinces the total will be cheaper. That is of course on capital cost not operational, also, not counting the “forced recycling” mentioned.
The $14 is what ARMA claims in their press relesaes but they haven't broken down where they came at that number. Many analysts seem to think it could be much higher.
The net effect along with other regulatory moves the AB gov't has taken (they banned all renewables projects outright for some months a couple years ag) is to discourage investment in what was formerly a growing sector.
Has always seemed like a policy failure to not just charge those fees at the point of sale and then fund a robust waste disposal program for the community.
Alberta is the most US-like province. As it's not been hit by Trump tariffs, it opposes any change to the current situation. As it's based on oil revenue (with some food production), of course it opposes renewable energy sources. Bit selfish, it is.
I wonder how loud they'd yowl if "no trade with Canada" gores their ox?
Implicit in all the "we'll bring Canada to heel" and "we don't need anything from Canada" talk is an Alberta/Sask exception. They don't mean AB/SK. They mean the rest of Canada, which leans further to the left politically and has more of a manufacturing sector or agricultural / forestry focus.
Also notably there are US states like Texas which are also extremely focused on fossil fuel production which aren't taking this aggressive anti-renewables stance. Alberta is actually further on this axis than any other regime in North America -- taking on a very explicit anti-renewables stance. Even effectively (through regulation) banning their use in large scale datacentre rollouts.
The local elites there are extremely threatened by any renewable talk; they run an active disinformation campaign, and formerly the province had one of the fastest growing renewable sectors in the world. (Alberta gets a lot of solar hours and has high winds, too)
Aside, I was coming back from Edmonton a couple days ago and in the airport there's a wine/liquor store with a sandwich board out front proudly proclaiming that they "have US wine & liquor for sale!" -- completely thumbing nose at the rest of the country as a business opportunity.
Different product. Bourbon owns a lot of headspace with consumers, and is not available in most of the country right now. There are Canadian made Bourbon-like products, but nothing will fill that niche for purists.
I imagine there's a similar thing going on with California wines. But less so.
> Implicit in all the "we'll bring Canada to heel" and "we don't need anything from Canada" talk is an Alberta/Sask exception. They don't mean AB/SK. They mean the rest of Canada, which leans further to the left politically and has more of a manufacturing sector or agricultural / forestry focus.
The paradox is that if we take the US administration at their word, that it is the trade deficit that is the problem they need to solve, then Alberta is 100% of the problem. Ontario, BC, Quebec have basically equal trade with the US. We ship a lot to the US, but we ship a lot of things we could make domestically from the US, though that is rapidly changing (for instance a major rail car manufacturing process is spinning up to replace that as an import from the US).
Alberta is basically 100% exports to the US, with negligible imports from the US.
So it's hilarious when Alberta says this isn't their trade war. Again, if we take Trump and his crew of rapists at their word, it is completely their trade war.
Apparently because the US buys Alberta oil, the rest of the Canada should be punished somehow? How spectacularly stupid.
But yes, Danielle Smith is a vile human and is a traitor to Canada. I get why Albertans elected her -- there are legitimate grievances and a better "deal" to be had -- but she is going to do spectacular damage to the province.
This is an insane take. A $14 recycling tax per $1000+ panel comes to <1.4%, which is around a quarter of federal sales tax for example, or 1/10 of combined GST and PST somewhere like BC.
Alberta has no provincial sales tax for the record and is the ONLY province without provincial sales tax. Solar panels are still more expensive in every other province in Canada based on sales tax rates alone.
<1.4% to fund the proper recycling of a solar panel seems more than reasonable.
Edit - also Alberta already has the lowest cost per installed watt of any province due to generally lower taxes and more vibrant construction ecosystem. Plus no PST. Complaining about a recycling fee is completely brain-dead and/or propaganda.
$14 per panel seems pretty good. This link estimates the cost at $15-45 USD, I've heard of costs as high as a couple hundred euros in France (except it's billed directly to the manufacturer so it's hidden). Complaining about $14 in the only Canadian province without PST is ridiculous.
Unless you've got the relevant licenses to install the panel up to code and hook into the power grid properly, yes, the cost of the installation is the cost.
Also, 5% would still be lower than the lowest PST of any province lol.
Also the "notoriously poisonous" part is just... not true.
There's bad faith outrage drifters and climate denialists who promote that idea, but the most common solar panel designs do not contain lead or cadmium.
And even the ones that do, solar panels are 100% recyclable. They shouldn't be going to landfill anyway, every single component in them except the glue that holds it together can be remanufactured into more solar panels.
My understanding is that it’s the thin film variant that’s “famously poisonous”, the Cadmium Telluride ones. But that’s not the type that almost any field full of solar is made up of.
I think that's because it's adding to the cost of solar, effectively making it an barrier to entry; when other provinces or states have financial incentives to install solar panels instead.
This measure sounds a bit disingenuous since Alberta has such a large petroleum industry and this type of measure targets in particular renewables, it looks like a punitive tax. If the problem really is recycling costs, make them payable on recycling (like, again, many products such as used drywall or oil)
Nobody is opposed to a recycling fee. If you actually read the article you will see it's 2.5x to 100x the recycling fees imposed anywhere else in the world. And accompanied by a disinformation campaign from the government.
Notably the same province has a massive abandoned oil & gas well problem that they have failed to deal with for decades at this point.
The same government also effectively banned the use of renewables to power datacentre projects in Alberta, forcing them to use natural gas only.
- Commissioned research estimates approximately C$5 per panel in present-value recycling costs, accounting for cost escalation over 20 years and potential reuse.
- The gov'ts "ARMA" has not published a breakdown explaining its C$14 figure.
- Utility projects already face reclamation security requirements covering recycling and disposal, raising a potential double-charging concern.
Do sufficient facilities exist to keep up with the recycling demand that will exist 25-50 years from now for panels? If not, then the $5 per panel needs to be increased to account for the extra infrastructure.
"I stopped reading halfway because it sounded like pure propaganda to me without any justification as to why it was unreasonable." Please stick to the HN rules. Please act in good faith
Entrenched interests want to take us all down with them, unfortunately. They will burn the field and salt the earth rather than yield control and lose their parasitical source of wealth.
In case you want to appropriately calibrate your anger.
Note that usually you mount many solar panels, not just one, so this will stack relatively quickly.
The net effect along with other regulatory moves the AB gov't has taken (they banned all renewables projects outright for some months a couple years ag) is to discourage investment in what was formerly a growing sector.
I wonder how loud they'd yowl if "no trade with Canada" gores their ox?
Also notably there are US states like Texas which are also extremely focused on fossil fuel production which aren't taking this aggressive anti-renewables stance. Alberta is actually further on this axis than any other regime in North America -- taking on a very explicit anti-renewables stance. Even effectively (through regulation) banning their use in large scale datacentre rollouts.
The local elites there are extremely threatened by any renewable talk; they run an active disinformation campaign, and formerly the province had one of the fastest growing renewable sectors in the world. (Alberta gets a lot of solar hours and has high winds, too)
Aside, I was coming back from Edmonton a couple days ago and in the airport there's a wine/liquor store with a sandwich board out front proudly proclaiming that they "have US wine & liquor for sale!" -- completely thumbing nose at the rest of the country as a business opportunity.
I imagine there's a similar thing going on with California wines. But less so.
The paradox is that if we take the US administration at their word, that it is the trade deficit that is the problem they need to solve, then Alberta is 100% of the problem. Ontario, BC, Quebec have basically equal trade with the US. We ship a lot to the US, but we ship a lot of things we could make domestically from the US, though that is rapidly changing (for instance a major rail car manufacturing process is spinning up to replace that as an import from the US).
Alberta is basically 100% exports to the US, with negligible imports from the US.
So it's hilarious when Alberta says this isn't their trade war. Again, if we take Trump and his crew of rapists at their word, it is completely their trade war.
Apparently because the US buys Alberta oil, the rest of the Canada should be punished somehow? How spectacularly stupid.
But yes, Danielle Smith is a vile human and is a traitor to Canada. I get why Albertans elected her -- there are legitimate grievances and a better "deal" to be had -- but she is going to do spectacular damage to the province.
Alberta has no provincial sales tax for the record and is the ONLY province without provincial sales tax. Solar panels are still more expensive in every other province in Canada based on sales tax rates alone.
<1.4% to fund the proper recycling of a solar panel seems more than reasonable.
Edit - also Alberta already has the lowest cost per installed watt of any province due to generally lower taxes and more vibrant construction ecosystem. Plus no PST. Complaining about a recycling fee is completely brain-dead and/or propaganda.
Edit 2 - https://www.pv-magazine.com/2026/06/05/solar-panel-recycling...
$14 per panel seems pretty good. This link estimates the cost at $15-45 USD, I've heard of costs as high as a couple hundred euros in France (except it's billed directly to the manufacturer so it's hidden). Complaining about $14 in the only Canadian province without PST is ridiculous.
Can Alberta apply it to oil and gas companies too?
https://solarpowerdepot.ca/canadian-solar-450w-mono-bifacial...
https://solarshoppingmall.com/products/renesola-450w-mono-so...
Those numbers point more towards 5-10% cost per panel.
I think your “$1,000+ panel” is conflating the hardware with its share of the entire installation. I don't know how else to explain it.
Also the "$14" number was put out by AMRA (the government's body) without any explanation of how they arrived at that number.
TFA is biased, yes, but its bias is frankly justifiable in the current context. While your "take" seems profoundly dishonest.
Also, 5% would still be lower than the lowest PST of any province lol.
But bulk buyers of panels aren't the end consumer. Passing that on as part of a $15000 installation over 15 years is nothing.
There's bad faith outrage drifters and climate denialists who promote that idea, but the most common solar panel designs do not contain lead or cadmium.
And even the ones that do, solar panels are 100% recyclable. They shouldn't be going to landfill anyway, every single component in them except the glue that holds it together can be remanufactured into more solar panels.
This measure sounds a bit disingenuous since Alberta has such a large petroleum industry and this type of measure targets in particular renewables, it looks like a punitive tax. If the problem really is recycling costs, make them payable on recycling (like, again, many products such as used drywall or oil)
Notably the same province has a massive abandoned oil & gas well problem that they have failed to deal with for decades at this point.
The same government also effectively banned the use of renewables to power datacentre projects in Alberta, forcing them to use natural gas only.
https://renewablesassociation.ca/recycling-a-tv-costs-2-75-w...
https://globalnews.ca/news/12048123/alberta-solar-panel-recy...
Notably:
- Commissioned research estimates approximately C$5 per panel in present-value recycling costs, accounting for cost escalation over 20 years and potential reuse.
- The gov'ts "ARMA" has not published a breakdown explaining its C$14 figure.
- Utility projects already face reclamation security requirements covering recycling and disposal, raising a potential double-charging concern.