Silver lining: Australian researchers given $45m to study alternative solar panel materials

The Australian Renewable Energy Agency will announce on Friday it will grant $45m over the next eight years to the University of NSW-based Australian Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics. Most of the money will be spent within the first five years.

The extended research would help Arena meet its goals of mass production of solar cells with a 30% efficiency at a cost of 30 cents a watt by 2030. Panels on the market now can operate with 23-24% efficiency, at the cost of about 70 cent/watt.

Achieving those goals will not be easy. The new funding will work on so-called tandem cells that stack two or more layers of materials to capture more energy of the spectrum of light, and operate more durably, particularly under higher temperatures.

The centre will also look to collaborate more to develop manufacturing capacity in Australia. At 4GW of panels being installed annually, the local market is nearing the volumes necessary to justify onshore production, particularly if plans by Sun Cable and other firms for giant solar farms of 20GW each or larger proceed, she said.