SOLARCYCLE announces big deal for Cedartown, then adds more

Ever wonder what happens to all those solar panels that break down for various reasons? A lot have ended up being chunked, but in the past couple of years a company coming soon to Polk County has been revolutionizing a process to recycle panels and provide raw materials back to the solar industry.

SOLARCYCLE began life in Texas, but has since moved their world headquarters to Arizona and now are expanding their operations to Cedartown, Georgia in the coming years after announcing a deal in the first quarter of 2024, working on the financing side, and finally decided they’ll need more room as soon as possible.

Back in October, a deal was struck for SOLARCYCLE to take over the hundreds of thousands of empty square footage inside the old Gildan Yarns plant in the Northside Industrial Park.

They’ll be moving much of their recycling facilities into the plant and hiring hundreds of workers in the coming months while still working on larger facilities across Davis Road, where SOLARCYCLE plans to build a plant to make glass from the panels being recycled to sell onward to solar panel manufacturers.

The York property where the new building will go will get a multimillion dollar investment to build out the plant. They’ve spent $5 million so far on the property, and will tack on another $62 million to build out the recycling plant at Gildan Yarns before all is said and done.

SOLARCYCLE have through the year been working on a bond sale to get the financing to pay for the deal, and were able to complete those goals to move forward to the next round: design, permitting and getting bids for the construction work.

Polk County – especially in Cedartown – has been part of Georgia’s overall solar growth over the past decade and a half. Among the projects increasing the amount of energy generated from sun power includes hundreds of panels run by a partnership including Georgia Power in the Industrial Park, panels at GEO Specialty Chemical, and on city property near the old Detention Center.

Growth of solar farms in Rockmart and Aragon have also put the total number of panels generating power from Pizza Farm in the east to Sixth Street in the west number in the thousands, and megawatts of energy.