From my position in an Australian solar energy research and education institution, I see great hope and excitement for the sector. Overseas interest in collaboration and in application of Australian research results is at an unprecedented level, government action – such as the new Australian Solar Institute – is building a strong market in Australia, and other steps by state governments and private industry are all evidence of growing confidence in a solar-powered future.

A sea change in public opinion took place in late 2006 – sparked, I think, by the combined effects of the Stern Report, the Al Gore climate change film, An Inconvenient Truth, and – most effectively – the drought that threatened the water supplies of major Australian cities.

These events brought climate change and renewable energy to the forefront of public debate – although a causal link between climate change and that drought has not been established. While this mood was eroded by the global financial crisis, the awareness of a need for sustainable energy supplies is re-asserting itself in the public conscience as economic concerns ease.

Governmental promotion of solar energy is generating stronger markets and research and development opportunities within Australia. The Australian Solar Institute has just announced its first batch of multimillion dollar grants for solar photovoltaic (PV) and solar thermal energy research, and more will follow over the next few years. This will add up to $100 million in new money, first foreshadowed before the 2007 Federal election, and is available to solar energy researchers, in addition to the usual competitive access to general scientific research funding.

Currently, too, large organisations are positioning themselves for bids for the Federal Government’s 1 gigawatt Solar Flagships program that will generate utility-scale solar thermal and solar PV power stations in Australia and inject very significant funding into Australian research institutions.

In New South Wales, Premier Kristina Keneally has announced a $5 million competitive Energy Challenge Prize for New South Wales-based institutions, with the detailed guidelines still to be announced.

New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory and Alice Springs all now have gross feed-in tariffs for solar-generated electricity in place, and the ACT Government has announced that it is considering improvements to its original scheme. Four of the seven Solar Cities are already operating and the $480 million National Solar Schools Program will run until 2015, providing significant installation activity.

Major international manufacturers are seeking and adopting world-leading Australian-developed PV and solar thermal technologies at an increasing rate. Australian intellectual property is in strong demand and has an opportunity to supply one of the world’s primary PV technologies within the next few years. Coupled with that, local and international student interest in Australia’s educational opportunities in this field is exploding.

Of course, the excitement is tinged with continuing disappointment that solar energy equipment manufacturing has still not blossomed in Australia. In fact, we have recently seen the closure of the BP Solar silicon cell and modules lines in Sydney, as BP decided that a factory restricted to just a 50-megawatt-per-year production is not viable and consolidated its manufacturing in Bangalore. A bright ray of hope came with Silex’s purchase of the plant at the eleventh hour and its expressed intention to resume manufacturing in 2010.*

Many of my international contacts express their surprise that Australia has not capitalised on its technical leadership in solar energy research and built a vibrant industry. It does make more sense to them when they understand the abundance of coal and gas in Australia (I am writing this from oil-rich Saudi Arabia, where solar proponents have our problem in spades) and the usual reasons that manufacturing in Australia is challenging in general – salary levels, the environmental regulations that keep Australia clean and the occupational health and safety rules that keep workers and students at work.

More subtly, we have what I perceive as an Australian lack of confidence in our own cleverness – almost an assumption that if a technology is local it must be second rate, at least until it is accepted overseas.

In any case, I soothe myself with thoughts that the manufacturing location for solar energy equipment is an unimportant issue in addressing the urgent global issues of global warming and ocean acidification, and that Australian inventors and their institutions are already starting to bring in a significant royalty income stream that will grow over the coming years.

On the installation front, not everyone is entirely happy with some of the details of the Renewable Energy Target that are still to be sorted out, and the Solar Homes and Communities Program is now finished.

However, on the whole, the overall solar energy industry, including in Australia, has never had it so good. We have an opportunity now to capitalise on our past decades of work and take our place as an important player in addressing our global problems.

*Editor’s note:

Richard Corkish is Head of the School of Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering at the University of New South Wales.