<
https://reneweconomy.com.au/australian-innovation-helped-launch-china-solar-juggernaut-now-its-time-to-hitch-a-ride-with-pv-giants/>
"The CEO of UNSW-originated solar innovator, SunDrive, says collaboration with
China will be crucial to the success of Australian companies seeking to make it
in the booming global solar industry, as well as to federal government plans to
establish a local solar supply chain.
SunDrive on Monday announced it has signed a new joint development agreement
with two giants of the China solar industry – Maxwell Technologies and Vistar
Equipment Technology – to co-develop and distribute commercial-scale
direct-copper plating tools, to produce high-efficiency heterojunction (HJT)
solar cells.
The new JDA adds to a deal SunDrive struck last year with fellow China giant
Trina Solar, to jointly apply for a share in federal Labor’s Solar Sunshot
funding to help set up a module manufacturing plant in Western Sydney, with an
initial production capacity of 1.2 gigawatts (GW).
SunDrive CEO Natalie Malligan said on Monday that these deals are part of the
company’s strategy to focus on its strengths at home – innovation and R&D –
while partnering with the leaders in manufacturing at scale, in China.
Since its inception in a suburban garage, SunDrive has set a couple of world
records in solar cell efficiency, won an Arena grant, and successfully
demonstrated that more than 99 per cent of the solar cells produced at its
pilot facility in Sydney can meet and beat commercial standards.
The company is now looking to take its technology from pilot scale to
commercial scale in Australia and beyond.
“Manufacturing in deep-tech fields requires huge amounts of expertise and also
huge amounts of capital,” Malligan told
Renew Economy in an interview on
Monday afternoon.
“I think Australia could definitely do these things if we had decades and
billions of dollars to invest, but to get to market in a capital effective way
and at speed, we really need to utilise the expertise that already exists.
“Ninety per cent of the world’s solar is made in China, and that includes the
tooling, it includes the product, it includes …the whole value chain. And so it
just really makes sense for us to tap into that and to bring that expertise and
partner it with what we do really well in Australia, which is obviously solar
technology.
“So yeah, it just makes a lot of sense, both for Australia as an economy, but
also for private companies like SunDrive to bring innovations to the world.”"
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
