Texas Plant Wants to Recycle One Solar Panel Per Minute
Solar panels don't last forever. They typically stay in service for 25 to 35 years, and with hundreds of millions already operating across the US, a wave of retirements is coming. Most recycling today grabs the aluminum frame and glass — the heavy stuff, not the valuable stuff. A new Texas facility aims to change that by recovering the critical materials that actually matter, on US soil.
What's Actually Being Built
We Recycle Solar, based in Yuma, Arizona, says it will open what it describes as the first US end-to-end critical-materials recovery plant dedicated to retired solar panels in Q3 2027. The 10-acre facility outside Dallas is designed to process one panel per minute and recover up to 96% of its materials. Those materials — silver, copper, silicon, aluminum, and glass — will be cleaned and prepared for sale back into US supply chains. The company says its proprietary process works at commercial scale without requiring downstream smelting at an overseas facility.
Why This Matters Beyond Texas
Conventional solar recycling generally focuses on the aluminum frame and glass, which make up most of a panel's weight but aren't its most valuable parts. Recovering smaller amounts of silver, copper, and silicon in usable form is more complicated and expensive. Solar panel recycling already happens in the US, but it typically costs more than sending panels to a landfill. Improving recovery of high-value materials could close that gap while reducing the need for newly mined materials. The resulting materials could be reused in solar equipment, electronics, the grid, and other US industries.
The Timing and the Scale
Most US solar panels are nowhere near retirement. The US Department of Energy says about 70% of the world's solar projects have been installed since 2019, and panels now typically remain in service for 25 to 35 years. But with hundreds of millions of panels already operating across the US, the volume reaching the end of its useful life will climb sharply over the next several decades. Weather damage, installation problems, and early replacement of older panels with more efficient models will add to that stream. WRS says it has already diverted more than 1 million panels from landfills through its existing decommissioning, recycling, resale, and remarketing operations.
What Comes Next
The Dallas-area plant is intended to be the first in a larger network. WRS plans to invest around $100 million in four additional US facilities over the next four years, though it hasn't yet disclosed their locations. If the model works, it could shift where solar's end-of-life value lands — keeping silver, copper, and silicon in domestic supply chains instead of exporting partially processed materials for overseas processing.
Key Takeaways
- We Recycle Solar plans a 10-acre Dallas-area plant to process one retired solar panel per minute and recover up to 96% of its materials.
- The facility aims to recover silver, copper, silicon, aluminum, and glass without overseas smelting, keeping value in US supply chains.
- Conventional recycling focuses on aluminum and glass, not the more valuable silver, copper, and silicon — which is harder and costlier to recover.
- WRS plans to invest around $100 million in four more US facilities over four years, with locations undisclosed.
- About 70% of the world's solar projects were installed since 2019, meaning most panels are still far from retirement.
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