Tindo Solar Sustainability Policy

Tindo Solar is Australia’s only manufacturer of solar panels, striving to provide Australians with a quality, trustworthy product that allows homeowners and businesses to decarbonise their energy needs and operate more sustainably. We employ around 50 people at our Adelaide factory and produce the best-performing solar panels in the Australian market, according to Desert Knowledge Australia Solar Centre. This performance means our panels hold up against Australian conditions and last longer than competitors’ products, producing more clean energy and reducing waste.

Tindo Solar maintains and strives for the highest standards of sustainability, making a priority of our environmental, social and governance responsibilities. The following are some of the features of our policy:

• Re-Use: we believe deeply in the value of a circular economy, which is why Tindo Solar takes back the panels that customers wish to upgrade. We test and refurbish those panels before making them available as quality pre-used panels for caravans, boats and camping. We process around 500 of these panels every year, keeping panels out of landfill and ensuring that a quality Australian product can be re-used, helping to displace petrol and diesel generators.
• Sourcing Responsibly: Out of necessity, components for the panels we manufacture are sourced from overseas. This exposes us to risk of forced labour in our supply chains, a risk we take very seriously and manage with active engagement with our supply chain partners, and also through membership of the UN Global Compact (see Tindo Solar’s media release). We demand ethical supply chains in our business, which has seen us change cell suppliers in 2020, and fortify our system of assurances from our new supplier that they do not utilise forced labour through any of their supply chains. We are pleased to be able to say that when the report into forced labour in the Chinese renewables industry – In Broad Daylight – was released in 2021, our suppliers were not included in the list of named companies. We strongly advocate for the establishment of sovereign capability and hope to see components produced in Australia, allowing for better transparency and reliability of the renewables supply chain.
• Labour and skills: Tindo Solar believes in creating secure, quality jobs in its community and maintaining fulltime positions where possible. We invest in traineeships and apprenticeship and we collaborate with university and TAFE students who need access to our unique equipment and expertise (for instance we have supported university and TAFE Solar Race teams in their technical needs). We are an equal opportunity employer with an inclusive hiring policy.
• Landfill: solar panels contain multiple materials which are glued and fused into place, creating a challenge in the recycling of these complex products. Unfortunately, most of the world’s replaced solar panels go to landfill because they are too expensive to recycle. Tindo actively supports solutions for circularity at end of use, starting with building panels that last longer than the industry average (25-year warranty versus the industry average of 10 years). In 2021, Tindo Solar formed a partnership with another Adelaide business – Reclaim PV – to create a recycling ‘loop’ that sees 98 per cent of the disused panel recycled. Reclaim PV uses a hi-tech incinerator, as well as chemical processes, to even recover the glue constituents and sell them back to industry. The 2 per cent that can’t be recycled is a small junction box, but this will be resolved in 2022. This is the first and only end-to-end recovery process for solar panels in Australia and Tindo Solar is proud to be a part of it.
• Energy use: Beyond striving to help Australians to consistently generate clean, reliable energy themselves, at the time of writing Tindo Solar’s new factory at Mawson Lakes, South Australia, is laying the foundations for a 220kw rooftop system that meets most of the electricity demand from our production.
• Greater efficiency: one of the most effective ways of powering the energy transition is to ensure that a single solar panel produces as much power as is possible – this reduces reliance on the grid and makes the most of the available insolation. At Tindo’s new factory, we have invested in a new production line that can assemble the new global standard silicon cell – the M10 – which produces more power than its predecessor cell.
• Not for Profits: we are proudly engaged in the NFP space, making pre-used and new panels available for community projects in remote Australia and Papua New Guinea, at affordable prices.
• Ex Services: Tindo CEO, Shayne Jaenisch, is a proud ex-serviceman and the company remains committed to supporting retired and current servicemen and women. Tindo work closely with the Returned & Services League of Australia and offers discounts to those who have served.

Tindo Solar strives to make a positive difference in the communities we belong to, whether local, national or our industry sector. We are proud to play our part assisting Australians to move toward net-zero ambitions.