Giles Parkinson at the Climate Spectator reports that Chinese solar company Suntech thinks Australia is headed for a solar power boom - Suntech calls an Australian solar boom.

Suntech, the world’s largest solar manufacturing company, has produced stunning forecasts for the solar PV industry in Australia – saying it could supply 5 per cent of the nation’s power demand by the end of this decade, reaching the target three decades ahead of the federal government’s most recent forecast.

Stefan Jarnason, the technical director of Suntech Australia, says solar PV capacity in Australia could reach 10 gigawatts by 2020, when it would be growing at a phenomenal 2GW a year. He bases these forecasts on rapidly declining costs, which mean electricity from rooftop PV that is already cheaper than coal-fired energy delivered by energy retailers in some parts of the country, will reach parity for commercial users around 2015, and parity for utility-scale developments towards the end of the decade.

It's just a forecast, but it represents a growing realisation within and without the industry that in a very few years the rollout of solar PV will be dictated less by the scale of financial incentives – because it might not need much – but by the scale of regulatory protection for the current energy suppliers, because they might need all the help they can get.

Jarnason predicts installation of rooftop PV will slump sharply to around 250MW in 2012 because of the dramatic changes in government incentives over the last six to 12 months, but will grow at 20 per cent per year as more consumers use it as a hedge against rising electricity prices. Again, this will depend more on the removal of regulatory barriers than on government financial support.

He predicts commercial-scale solar PV will be around 40MW in 2012 and grow at 40 per cent a year, while utility-scale solar will grow at 20-60MW per year, before experiencing massive growth from around 2018, as solar costs come down, and hidden subsidies are removed from fossil fuels. “Until the government is able to remove hidden subsidies, growth in utility-scale will remain slow – when we hit grid parity there will be a boom," he told a seminar on "The Future of Solar," hosted by the Grattan Institute and the University of Melbourne last night. By the end of the decade, he says, the combination of solar PV and solar thermal with storage will be able to deliver base-load power.

Such a scenario would appear to be a significant threat to the energy incumbents, particularly in the coal and gas industries, because it would reduce opportunities for new deployment and eat into their earnings because of the impact of solar and other short run marginal cost technologies in the so-called merit order effect (more on that tomorrow). It would also come as a shock to the government, which forecasts just 5 per cent solar by 2050 in scenarios painted in its Clean Energy Future package. The long-awaited Energy White Paper, which will be delivered in the next month or so and will become the blueprint of the country’s energy planning over the next decade, will also be unlikely to have such a bullish forecast, seeing that none of the 23-person panel advising the government is a specialist in solar technology.

Indeed, Jarnason says the main impediments to the industry are not cost but regulatory barriers, with politicians seemingly unaware of the technology’s potential. “Unfortunately, politicians view solar PV, and probably to an extent all renewable energy, as a political exercise than an energy generation exercise," he said. And the small numbers of incumbent generators, retailers and network operators are highly influential and also keen to maintain regulatory barriers. “They’d rather not have to change," Jarnason said. "Solar PV is a form of distributed energy, so (the utilities) need to rethink how to generate supply to get you and I to pay for their energy." This echoes the thoughts from the CEO of US utility NRG Energy.

Suntech’s forecasts may come as little consolation to the likes of SilexSolar, which announced on Tuesday that it would suspend manufacturing at its Homebush plant in Australia, blaming a trifecta of cheap Chinese imports, the high Australian dollar, and the policy changes on solar PV, particularly in NSW where the market has fallen to virtually zero. Ironically, the company's decision to shut down came just a week after the carbon pricing legislation was finally passed by the Senate, and on the same day as a Chinese-based solar PV parts manufacturer announced a $6 million float on Sydney’s new venture capital market, the SIM-VSE.

Suntech’s Jarnason says that while the modules needed to meet his bullish solar forecasts would almost certainly come from China, more than half the economic value of the solar PV build-out would be for building, operating and maintaining the plants. He says solar PV generates more jobs per gigawatt hour than other technologies, and Australia still has the opportunity to export PV technology and know-how. He says Suntech is spending $40 million a year on research and development, much of it in Australia where it supports programs at the world-leading UNSW and elsewhere. Suntech’s chief executive, chief operating officer and chief technology officer are all Australian citizens.

Technology Review has an in-depth look at Chinese solar power company Suntech - Solar's Great Leap Forward.

To see the future of solar power, take an hour-long train ride inland from Shanghai and then a horn-blaring cab trek through the smog of Wuxi, a fast-growing Chinese city of five million. After winding through an industrial park, you will arrive at the front door of Suntech Power, a company that in the few years since its founding has become the world's largest maker of crystalline-silicon solar panels.

Solar panels cover the entire front face of the sprawling eight-story headquarters. Nearly 2,600 two-meter-long panels form the largest grid-connected solar façade in the world. Together with an array of 1,800 smaller panels on the roof, it can generate a megawatt of power on a sunny day. It's expected to produce over a million kilowatt-hours of electricity in a year--enough for more than 300 people in China.

In 2001, when Suntech was founded, all the solar-panel factories in China operating at full capacity would have taken six months to build enough panels for such a massive array. Suntech's first factory, which opened in 2002, cut that time to a little more than a month. Today, the company can make that many panels in less than one 12-hour shift. By the end of this year, the workers could be done by lunchtime. Suntech's production capacity has increased from 10 megawatts a year in 2002 to well over 1,000 megawatts today. Chinese solar manufacturing as a whole has increased its capacity from two megawatts in 2001 to over 4,000 megawatts.

That rapid growth, fueled by relentless cost cutting, has allowed Chinese manufacturers to overtake those in the United States, Japan, and Germany in less than a decade to become the biggest source of solar panels in the world. Worldwide, Chinese solar panels accounted for about half of total shipments in 2009. And that share is expected to grow this year. Of the 10 largest solar-panel manufacturers, half are based in China. In 2007, U.S.

The CTO of Suntech explains the company’s advanced solar technology, and takes you inside the manufacturing facilities. Video Credit: Kevin Bullis, Edited by JR Rost

manufacturers supplied 43 percent of the panels for a solar rebate program in California. The rest came almost exclusively from Japan and Germany; only 2 percent came from China. Now Chinese companies supply 42 percent of the panels, and the U.S. share has dropped to 15 percent according to an analysis by Nathaniel Bullard of Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

In 2004, it cost about $3.20 per watt, on average, to make silicon solar panels. By now, according to solar-industry analysts at Photon Consulting in Boston, a Chinese manufacturer can make them for as little as $1.28 per watt, while the lowest-cost Western manufacturer will produce comparable technology for about $2.00 per watt. Not only has this cost advantage made Chinese manufacturers dominant in the industry, but it's also helped redefine the prospects for solar power, pushing it closer to what insiders call "grid parity"--the point where it is just as cheap as electricity on the power grid, most of which is generated with fossil fuels. "In about five years' time, we should be able to reach grid parity in at least 30 to 50 percent of the global market," says Zhengrong Shi, Suntech's founder and CEO, speaking from his spacious office looking out over the back of his company's massive solar façade.

Suntech's strategy so far has been to cut the cost per watt by reducing the expense of manufacturing solar panels. But reaching grid parity will also require increasing the efficiency of the panels so that each one produces more watts.

Under the leadership of Shi, who was a solar researcher before he became a businessman, the company has developed a new way to make solar panels; multi­crystalline modules made last year broke a 15-year-old record for efficiency in converting sunlight to electricity. A few months later, Suntech increased the efficiency mark yet again. And the company's lab has prototypes that promise even better results. If these advances pan out, it could finally clear the way for Shi's dream of affordable solar power.

News Ltd (somewhat surprisingly, given their customary love for all things coal and uranium related) have an article advocating Australia switch to clean energy sources - How we can be a green super power.

"I challenge our nation to commit to producing 100% of its electricity from clean energy within 10 years" - Al Gore

Al Gore says the United States should embark on a "man on the moon"-style effort to satisfy all of America's electricity needs by renewable energy within a decade. Just 10 years. That’s an incredibly bold vision - a real stretch goal. But it is also what’s needed to avert a climate crisis.

So why not do the same in Australia? Here, it could become a "nation-building" symbol of pride, akin to the 19th Century construction of the Overland Telegraph Line or the post-WW II Snowy Hydro Scheme.

Eighty per cent of Australians support carbon trading. A carbon price will open up huge new 21st Century markets, as price signals lead to a retooling of our energy economy away from dirty power sources like coal.

Australia has more than enough wind, geothermal and solar energy to make it happen. The question is not the availability of resources. It is national will, adequate leadership and sufficient commitment.

Al Gore says his plan is "achievable, affordable and transformative." It is, both in the US and in Australia.

Fossil fuels like coal and oil are rising in price due to scarcity and supply bottlenecks, coupled to spiralling demand. Meanwhile, the costs of renewables are falling due to innovation, research and development, and rapidly-increasing economies of scale. Just like computers and mobile phones, the more you invest in these technologies and the more widespread their use, the cheaper they become.

Also, unlike fossil fuels, there will never be scarcity in renewables - ever. "Peak sun" and "peak geothermal" remain billions of years away. "Peak oil" and "peak coal" are right around the corner. ...

Renewable energy economics is radically transformative. Civilisation has never experienced a long-term epoch of declining energy costs such as it will see in renewable energy. Scarcity could become irrelevant. Renewable energy is an infinite resource that's falling in price due to rapid technological research and development.

"Moore's Law” has been successful since the early 1970s in predicting that computer prices will halve, and processing power double, every 18 months. This literally transformed modern society.

Falling energy prices due to the uptake of huge amounts of "flat price" (free once built) renewable energy could be even more positive. We only need to choose to follow this obvious path.

The time is right. We have a huge windfall of export receipts to invest in decarbonising our economy. Carbon trading will provide tens of billions of dollars more per year to invest in upgrading to cleaner energy sources.

If coupled with proper economic reform that progressively eliminates $10 billion of annual domestic fossil fuel subsidies in Australia , we could lay the groundwork for a "long boom" akin to the early years of the 20th century when our nation got rich on agricultural commodities

If we want to become an energy superpower we'll need to keep companies like Ausra at home instead of forcing them to move offshore. The Australian reports the company has raised more funding - $76m lights up solar tech maker. Co-founder John O'Donnell has moved on now the company is established, hopefully to start another cleantech venture.

THE Australian-founded solar energy technology company Ausra has scored a $US60.6 million ($76 million) funding package from venture capitalists -- including the local fund Starfish Ventures -- to help it crank up the production of its Fresnel lens-based power generators.

The Ausra investment is the first renewable energy investment for Starfish Ventures.
Ausra develops solar power plants using relatively inexpensive Fresnel lens technology that can stand alone or be grafted on to dirty coal-fired plants to reduce their carbon footprint.

Fresnel lenses are less efficient, but much cheaper, than conventional lenses and have traditionally been used in lighthouses. The powerplants work by focusing sunlight on water and generating steam that drives an electricity-producing turbine.

The Ausra investment is the first renewable energy investment for Starfish Ventures.

Ausra investment director Aaron Fyke said Ausra's long-term goal was to build solar plants at near the costs of coal-fired plants. Ausra is close to completing a 5-megawatt solar thermal plant near Bakersfield, California, and proposes to build a 177MW plant for Pacific Gas & Electric in California.

Fortune's Green Wombat reports that Chinese solar company Suntech is moving into the US market as well - China’s solar giant makes U.S. move.

In another sign that the financial crisis is not slowing the solar industry, Suntech, the giant Chinese solar module maker, made a big move into the United States market on Thursday. The company announced a joint venure with green energy financier MMA Renewable Ventures to build solar power plants and said it would acquire California-based solar installer EI Solutions.

Founded in 2001, Suntech (STP) recently overtook its Japanese and German rivals to become the world’s largest solar cell producer. The company has focused on the lucrative European market and only opened a U.S. outpost, in San Francisco, last year. The joint venture with MMA Renewable Ventures (MMA) - called Gemini Solar - will build photovoltaic power plants bigger than 10 megawatts.

Most solar panels are produced for commercial and residential rooftops, but in recent months utilities have been signing deals for massive megawatt photovoltaic power plants. Silicon Valley’s SunPower (SPWRA) is building a 250-megawatt PV power station for PG&E (PCG) while Bay Area startup OptiSolar inked a contract with the San Francisco-based utility for a 550-megawatt thin-film solar power plant. First Solar (FSLR), a Tempe, Ariz.-based thin-film company, has contracts with Southern California Edision (EIX) and Sempre to build smaller-scale solar power plants.

Suntech’s purchase of EI Solutions gives it entree into the growing market for commercial rooftop solar systems. EI has installed large solar arrays for Google, Disney, Sony and other corporations.

“Suntech views the long-term prospects for the U.S. solar market as excellent and growing,” said Suntech CEO Zhengrong Shi in a statement.