New solar recycling hub for Georgia

Solarcycle is building a five gigawatt solar panel recycling facility in Cedartown, Georgia, USA to complement its existing glass manufacturing plant.

The new 23 690m2 facility will initially treat two million solar panels per year, which will be ramped up to 10 million by 2030. The plant will have the capacity to process up over 25% of the country’s retired solar panels.

The facility will be built in the same campus as Solarcycle’s solar glass factory, which was announced in February, and is expected to be ready in mid-2025. The glass factory is said to be the first in the US to produce specialised glass for crystalline-silicon (c-Si) photovoltaics.

It will have the capacity to manufacture 5-6 GW of solar glass every year. Recovered materials from the recycling facility will be manufactured into new glass at the adjacent factory and sold directly back to American solar producers.

Strong demand

‘We are pleased to accelerate our work in Cedartown in response to continued demand for solar recycling,’ says Solarcycle ceo Suvi Sharma. ‘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.’

State governor Brian Kemp adds: ‘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. Doing so will benefit that entire region’s economy.’

Closed loop

The facility will debut Solarcycle’s next generation recycling process which will have the capacity to recover up to 99% of PV materials and is optimised for bifacial C-Si panels. The closed loop process is significantly more flexible and scalable than previous recycling solutions and achieves higher value and mass recovery rates.

Solarcycle recycles solar panels installed by more than 70 of the nation’s largest energy companies.

The company will employ more than 1 250 full-time employees across both locations once the campus reaches capacity.