SOLARCYCLE is building a huge solar recycling plant in Cedartown, Georgia, which will recycle 10 million solar panels a year.

The company says it will be able to process around a quarter of all the solar panels that are expected to reach end-of-life in the US in 2030.

The new facility, which is set to open in mid-2025, will start with the capacity to recycle 2 million panels annually and expand as demand grows. It will be adjacent to SOLARCYCLE’s already planned solar glass factory, which was announced earlier this year.

The glass factory will be the first of its kind in the US, producing specialized glass for crystalline silicon (c-Si) solar panels. Together, these two factories will employ over 1,250 people once they’re running at full capacity.

SOLARCYCLE CEO Suvi Sharma said that the Cedartown site is meant to close a major gap in the US solar supply chain: “By scaling recycling and solar glass manufacturing through a vertically integrated process, we are filling a critical gap in America’s solar supply chain and closing the loop for domestic solar manufacturing.”

Sharma credited the support from Governor Brian Kemp (R-GA) and the Biden-Harris administration’s clean energy policies for making the new factories possible.

The solar recycling company is also bringing Microsoft on board as a strategic investor, joining the ranks of investors like Fifth Wall, HG Ventures, and Closed Loop Partners. Brandon Middaugh, senior director of sustainability markets at Microsoft, said, “It’s important to us that companies like SOLARCYCLE are developing innovative solutions for ensuring that the raw materials required for this build-out and deployment are returned to the supply chain.”

The Cedartown recycling factory is designed to recover up to 99% of the materials from solar panels, including bifacial panels, which have been harder to recycle efficiently. Most recyclers today use the same approach for both monofacial and bifacial panels, but SOLARCYCLE’s new process is supposed to be far more flexible and efficient. The company plans to turn the recovered materials into new solar glass right next door, and then they’ll go straight back into the US solar market.

With facilities already operating in Odessa, Texas, and Mesa, Arizona, SOLARCYCLE is expanding its footprint to tackle one of the solar industry’s biggest challenges: dealing with end-of-life panels. The 255,000-square-foot Cedartown facility is move-in ready, and the company has long-term partnerships with over 70 major US energy companies to handle their panel recycling.

Correction: SOLARCYCLE has clarified that it expects to process around a quarter of all the solar panels that are expected to reach end-of-life in the US in 2030 alone, not by 2030. We apologize for the confusion.

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