We Recycle Solar (WRS), America鈥檚 first dedicated, utility-scale solar panel recycling company, has announced plans for the nation鈥檚 first end-to-end critical materials recovery facility for retired solar panels. The first-of-its-kind commercial-scale plant, scheduled to launch Q3 2027 in Texas, will recover up to 96% of the silver, copper, silicon, aluminum, and glass contained in end-of-life solar panels, and produce clean, market-ready critical materials for direct resale through a fully-domestic process, with zero offshore processing.
Unlike conventional recycling methods that may send semiprocessed solar panel materials offshore for further recovery, the new WRS facility will process and recover valuable panel materials entirely within the U.S.鈥攁t a scale never before achieved domestically. The WRS plant will utilize a proprietary high-efficiency end-to-end critical mineral extraction process to achieve a throughput of one panel per minute, while bypassing the need for downstream smelting at overseas facilities.
The launch of the company鈥檚 next-generation capabilities marks an important turning point towards strengthening domestic critical material supply chains essential to major U.S. industrial sectors. For instance, silver鈥攃ritical to solar energy, AI infrastructure, defense systems, electronics, and the power grid鈥攊s entering its sixth consecutive year of structural global deficits as industrial demand continues to outpace global supply. New export-licensing requirements introduced in January by China, which controls an estimated 60-70% of the global supply, have added further uncertainty to global silver markets, heightening concerns about critical material supply chain resilience and security.
In the U.S., where solar is now the fastest-growing electricity source, retired solar panels represent a significant untapped source of critical materials. By 2050, the U.S. is projected to hold the world鈥檚 largest stockpile of end-of-life solar panels behind China, worth more than $80 billion in recyclable materials – but currently, an estimated 90% of America鈥檚 old solar panels go to landfill or shipped to offshore processing centers, predominantly in Asia, where a significant share of the critical materials they contain are recovered鈥攁nd removed from the American supply chain entirely.
鈥淪olar panels contain the exact critical materials the U.S. supply chain desperately needs, but until now, no American company has been able to recover their full resources at such scale or efficiency,鈥� said Adam Saghei, founder and CEO of We Recycle Solar. 鈥淭hrough our advanced process, we are achieving true, comprehensive material recovery entirely on U.S. soil, and retaining these critical materials鈥攁nd the value currently being lost to Asian processing鈥攚ithin our domestic supply chain.鈥�