Solarcycle to add recycling plant to Georgia campus

Solar panel recycling company Solarcycle, headquartered in Mesa, Arizona, has announced plans to build a 5-gigawatt (GW) recycling facility in Cedartown Georgia, adjacent to the solar glass factory the company announced in February that it will be building.

The glass factory will be the first in the U.S. to produce specialized glass for crystalline-silicon (C-Si) photovoltaics and will have the capacity to manufacture 5 to 6 GW annually. The company says it will employ more than 1,250 full-time employees across both locations once the campus reaches full capacity.

The company currently operates recycling facilities in Odessa, Texas, and Mesa, Arizona. Its new 255,000-square-foot recycling facility in Georgia will have the capacity to recycle and recover materials from 10 million solar panels per year, according to Solarcycle, enough to process an estimated 25 percent to 30 percent of the retired solar panels in the U.S. by 2030. Solarcycle says the Georgia plant initially will recycle 2 million solar panels per year, scaling with growing market demand for end-of-life solar services and domestic solar supply.

In addition to glass, the company recovers silver, copper, aluminum and silicon.

The Georgia recycling facility will debut the company’s next-generation recycling process, which will be able to recover up to 99 percent of photovoltaic (PV) materials and is optimized for bifacial C-Si panels, according to Solarcycle. The company says this closed-loop process is more flexible and scalable than previous recycling solutions while achieving higher value and mass recovery rates.

Recyclers are using the same technology platform for monofacial and bifacial panels, which is extremely inefficient and leads to much lower-quality recovered materials, Solarcycle says.

“Our original technology was optimized for crystalline panels, which are the majority of the panels currently installed in the U.S.,” Jesse Simons, co-founder and chief commercial officer at Solarcycle, tells Recycling Today. “We have developed a number of innovations for this technology, including automating large portions of the disassembly line and increasing the speed and purity of the glass removal process. Our process can extract up to 95 percent of the valuable materials in a panel.”

Regarding the new equipment the company will use in Georgia, he says, Solarcycle will reveal more in the coming months.

The new recycling facility is move-in ready and will be operational by mid-2025. The adjacent glass factory will be operational in 2026, and Simmons says the company plans to use the majority of its recycled glass cullet at its glass factory.

Simons says vertically integrating recycling and glass production offers significant benefits to Solarcycle. “Unlike competing recyclers that downcycle glass material into things like road beads or roadbed aggregate, Solarcycle recycles solar glass directly into new solar panels. This is a very valuable glass that requires extremely low iron silica to ensure maximum transparency.”

“Using recycled glass to manufacture new glass saves material costs, eliminates shipping and trade risks and requires less energy to produce," he adds. "We can leverage these benefits to manufacture solar glass in the U.S. that competes with highly subsidized and carbon-intensive glass from overseas. Today, all solar glass in the U.S. is imported from overseas. Our glass factory is on track to be one of the first in the U.S. to manufacture the type of rolled patterned solar glass needed for crystalline silicon panels.”

Solarcycle says it has long-term partnerships with more than 70 of the nation’s largest energy companies to recycle and recover value from retired solar panels.

To support the expansion of the company’s circular economy campus in Cedartown, Solarcycle has added Microsoft to its roster of strategic investors, which includes Fifth Wall, HG Ventures, Prologis Ventures, Closed Loop Partners, and Urban Innovation Fund.

“The transition to a net zero economy will require massive deployment of renewable energy solutions at scale," says Brandon Middaugh, senior director of sustainability markets at Microsoft. “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.”

“Microsoft is one of the largest buyers of clean energy in the world and is committed to accelerating a circular economy,” Simmons says. “The company is very interested in innovative companies like Solarcycle that are developing solutions to make solar panels even more sustainable and to domesticate the solar supply chain in the process.”

Regarding its facilities in Georgia, Gov. Brian Kemp says, “As Georgia continues to lead the nation in attracting jobs from emerging industries, we're thankful Solarcycle is moving up creation of these opportunities in northwest Georgia, benefitting that entire region's economy. I want to thank our local and state partners who made this accelerated growth in Polk County possible, and I look forward to its impact in the years to come.”

“We are pleased to accelerate our work in Cedartown, Georgia, in response to continued demand for solar recycling," Solarcycle co-founder and CEO Suvi Sharma says. "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. We thank Gov. Kemp and the Biden-Harris Administration for their success driving clean energy policy forward. Their leadership has made it possible for the industry to grow operations in the U.S. and bring good jobs and meaningful investment to local communities as a result.”

For the Georgia campus, Solarcycle is hiring full-time jobs in manufacturing, engineering, management, research and design and support staff. Information about open roles is available on the Solarcycle website.