China, Australia bask in solar panel success

Electrician James Moore, who installed solar panels on the roof of his Sydney home two years ago, said the green energy move has helped him halve his household power bills.

When told that the equipment came from China, Moore was not surprised. "It's efficient and effective, very suitable for sunny Australia," he said.

Moore's words were fitting in more ways than one. The development of photovoltaic, or PV, technology, which converts sunlight into electricity and powers the growing use of solar energy in the country, can be traced to Australian research and innovation.

Ned Ekins-Daukes, head of the School of Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, said the university's pioneering PV research helped nurture ties with Chinese industry and academics that continue to place them at the forefront of the field.

"UNSW has this extraordinary story of where we invented some photovoltaic technologies a long way ahead of the market being ready to accept them. During that time, many students came from China to study at UNSW and took some of the ideas back to China," the professor said.

Major contributions to the sector include work led by multiple-award-winning UNSW scientist Martin Green, who invented groundbreaking types of solar cells in the early 1980s. This helped fuel further research that has since accounted for more than 90 percent of worldwide silicon solar module production, according to the university.

One of Green's doctoral students, Shi Zhengrong, subsequently implemented a low-cost manufacturing transformation and went on to set up the first commercial solar cell producer of its kind in China. Serving as the Chinese company's chief scientist, Green and other research team members helped facilitate the rapid growth of the sector.

"What's happened in China is that, because of the scale of the manufacturing that's possible and the supply chain integration that's been built up over the last 20 years, the costs of those technologies have dramatically reduced," Ekins-Daukes said.

In China, there has been continuous improvement in the technology, he said. "In Australia, we demonstrated the concept, we demonstrated that these solar cell technologies could work well. But in China, the engineers have worked hard to actually (apply) those technologies for manufacturing and critically bring robotic automation into the manufacturing of silicon solar panels," he said.

UNSW now works directly with major PV companies to help them improve the technology and its practical applications in Australia and beyond, Ekins-Daukes said.

This "loop of innovation" between Australia and China will continue, he added. "China has huge manufacturing strengths, and the opportunity for Australia ... having a lot of space and a lot of sunshine, is to collaborate and help deploy solar at an enormous scale for the benefit of the Australian economy, in a partnership," Ekins-Daukes said.