A Sunburnt Country of Missed Opportunity

24 Jul 11

Australia urgently needs a national solar manufacturing and tertiary education plan to produce the skilled workforce required to ''build all aspects of the industry from start to finish'', a leading scientist says.
Australia's solar industry has been constrained by a decade of ''chaotic stop-start policy initiatives'', leaving few stayers in the game and only a handful of qualified solar engineers, Australian National University sustainable energy director Professor Andrew Blakers said.

''We have to build a chain of expertise that starts with refining silicon, and goes right through, from manufacturing solar cells and photovoltaics to installing solar panels on roofs.''

His call for a federal manufacturing plan comes as commercial production of solar sliver cells an Australian innovation predicted to slash the cost of solar panels by 75 per cent moves offshore to the United States.

Australian company Origin Energy has closed the $30million pilot plant it built in Adelaide to test-run sliver cell manufacture, and moved operations to Boise, Idaho. More than 60 Australian jobs are affected, with about 20 skilled workers expected to transfer to the US plant.

The wafer-thin solar cells, co-invented by Professor Blakers and ANU engineer Professor Klaus Weber, use less silicon, are highly flexible and harvest light from both sides.

They won numerous Australian innovation awards and are predicted to accelerate uptake of photovoltaic energy by making solar power more affordable, portable and adaptable to smaller surfaces such as military uniforms and backpacks.

Professor Blakers said he was ''not disappointed'' by the move. His ANU team will remain involved in research contracts worth about $6million to further improve sliver cell efficiency.

''One of the things we're working on is something called texturing, where we roughen the surface and that traps lights in the silicon,'' he said.

Origin Energy has formed a joint venture, Transform Solar, with US company Micron Technology to convert a disused computer chip factory into a high-tech solar manufacturing plant.

Article written by Rosslyn Beeby Science and Environment Reporter for the Canberra Times.