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https://reneweconomy.com.au/sunshot-program-backs-sun-king-to-bring-large-scale-solar-panel-manufacturing-back-to-australia/>
"A company headed up by one of the legends of Australian solar research and
development has won more than $150 million in federal Solar Sunshot funding to
build a commercial-scale PV panel manufacturing plant in one of the nation’s
biggest coal hubs – the New South Wales Hunter Valley.
The federal and NSW Labor governments on Tuesday announced a $171 million
co-investment in the Hunter Valley Solar Foundry project, an initiative of the
Sunman Group, to build a factory that will produce Australian-made PV modules
for local and export markets.
Sunman’s founder, Zhengrong Shi, is a graduate of Australia’s University of New
South Wales and was once dubbed the “Sun King” for his key role in PV
innovation as well as in founding Suntech – once one of the world’s biggest
solar companies before its collapse.
For the past decade, Shi has been working on the commercialisation of his new
company’s flexible solar panels, a lightweight and bendy form of solar PV using
a polymer-based “skin”, sold by Sunman under the brand of “eArc” panels.
Sunman already has two large manufacturing facilities – a 1 GW facility in
China unveiled in 2022, and a smaller 500 MW facility that is under
construction in Indiana in the US. But last year, Shi revealed his company’s
plans to build a big manufacturing centre in Australia.
“We went to China to build first company Suntech, and there were many comments
about why Australia didn’t support Dr Shi and let him go to China,” Dr Shi told
Renew Economy in an interview almost exactly one year ago.
“Perhaps it was too early to do it here. But I think now it is time to come
back and build this.”"
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*** 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
