Solarcycle, a company handling end-of-life solar panels, is opening a new solar panel recycling facility that will also manufacture new panels.
According to the company, the upcoming facility will eventually have the capacity to recycle around 10 million old solar panels annually, or as much as 30 percent of the country’s retired solar panels by 2030.
Impressively, Solarcycle can recover up to 99 percent of photovoltaic materials from retired panels. In addition to opening the solar panel recycling facility, Solarcycle will operate a solar glass manufacturing facility next door that will use the recycled and recovered materials from retired solar panels to make new solar glass, making the entire operation satisfyingly circular.
The facility was made possible partly through funding from the Inflation Reduction Act,
and will be the first facility of its kind in the U.S. to manufacture glass for crystalline-silicon photovoltaics. It's expected to be operational mid 2025, with the adjacent glass factory up and running in 2026.
“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,” said Suvi Sharma, CEO and co-founder of Solarcycle.