Co-founders of SunPower, SolarCity support recycling platform Solarcycle

Solarcycle Inc, a recently-launched solar system recycling platform, announced today it has raised USD 6.6 million (EUR 6.2m) in growth funding from a number of investors, including the co-founders of SunPower and SolarCity.

The seed round was supported by cleantech entrepreneur Tom Dinwoodie, founder and former CEO and CTO of SunPower Corporation Systems, as well as SolarCity co-founders Peter and Lyndon Rive. Urban Innovation Fund and Closed Loop Partners also took part in the transaction.

“This funding will allow us to scale our advanced recycling operations in North America, enabling us to start handling the millions of solar systems that will be retiring in the coming years,” commented Suvi Sharma, CEO of Solarcycle.

The launch of Solarcycle was announced in early May. Based in Northern California, the company has developed a technology-driven platform to recycle retiring solar panels and technologies and repurposing them for new uses. Pablo Dias, co-founder and CTO of the firm, says that the platform can “recover more than 95% of the vital materials needed for the rapid transition towards 100% clean energy – including silicon, silver, copper and aluminum.”

Solarcycle’s first partner is residential solar installer Sunrun (NASDAQ:RUN), which will assist in developing new ways to test, reuse and upcycle retired solar panels by providing second-life units from its project portfolio.

(USD 1.0 = EUR 0.933)

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