Australia's sole solar panel maker SilexSolar suspended manufacturing at its Homebush plant on Tuesday, saying business had been decimated by cheap Chinese imports, and a lack of support from state and federal governments – factors that combined to make Silex's panels 20 per cent more expensive than imports. "The high Australian dollar has completed a  trifecta of negative market factors," CEO Michael Goldsworthy said.  

The move follows the company's closure of its solar cell plant in August, after the company decided to source the components more cheaply from its Chinese partner Hareon. The August closure resulted in the loss of about 30 manufacturing jobs, while this latest restructuring round, with all panel manufacturing suspended and the plant put under care and maintenance, will see another 45 workers retrenched. The future of SilexSolar, which still employs about 20 people, will be decided in the next few months. Parent company Silex Systems, which paid BP $6.5 million for the then mothballed Homebush operation in 2009.

Ironically, the closure comes just as the carbon price package finally became law. It also follows the collapse of Australia's largest solar PV installer SolarShop, for which a buyer is still being sought. Silex, however, said it will begin construction next month on the first 2MW stage of its proposed 100MW Mildura Solar Power Station Project. The project, which boasted unique concentrated solar PV technology bought from the collapsed Solar Systems, will be one of the largest Solar Power Stations in the world if it is built to scale. The first stage is expected to be completed by the end of next year. The construction of a single demonstration CS500 Dish System has also commenced at the King Abdullah University for Science and Technology in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

New Frontiers

Brisbane-based solar mounting technology outfit Frontier Solar has this week announced plans to launch a $6 million IPO on the the new Asian cleantech stock exchange, the SIM VSE, making it the first company to list on the new Australia-based exchange and the first cleantech company to launch an IPO since the passing of the federal government's Clean Energy Future package. Frontier Solar, whose technology brand Frontierac is produced by its Shanghai-based subsidiary, designs and produces solar mounting systems ranging from rooftop and ground, to fixed installations and solar trackers, to residential and commercial power plants. The company says it intends to list on the SIM VSE in late December 2011, with an issue of 24,000,000 shares at a starting price of $0.25 each, to raise a total of $6,000,000, with a minimum subscription of $4,000,000. AFS Capital Securities, a trading participant of SIM VSE, will lead manage the IPO.

“Frontier Solar is pleased to be the first IPO on SIM VSE. The exchange brings investors from across the Asia region that understand the key role clean technology will play in our future," said Frontier Solar CEO Robin Wu, who believes that the new exchange will offer the company strong leverage to fast-growing regional and global renewable energy markets. “We have an extensive client-base in the Asia region, Europe, Middle East and the USA and our technology was recently deployed in the largest commercial solar rooftop installation in China, and the largest in Australia at the University of Queensland – a 1.2MW facility,” Wu said. The Company’s technology brand, Frontierac, has five patents granted and four patents pending. Frontier Solar has plans to build a manufacturing facility near Shanghai, in China, to capitalise on low-cost manufacturing capabilities, with the ability to ramp-up production levels as necessary. It also plans to open a sales offices in Australia (Queensland), Europe and the USA, and is eyeing a joint venture with an Indian manufacturing company to tap into India's rapidly growing solar industry.

Winds of change

A new report from the Bureau of Resources and Energy Economics has noted a shift in Australia’s energy mix towards renewables, with 41 per cent of committed new investment shown to be in wind. The BREE annual publication, Major Electricity Generation Projects, showed that, at the end of October 2011, 19 projects were at an advanced stage of development (either committed or under construction), with an estimated generation capacity of 2668MW and a capital cost of $4.8 billion. Ten of these were advanced renewable energy projects, including seven wind projects; two hydro upgrade projects and one solar thermal project. The renewable projects have a combined capacity of 1233MW, or around 46 per cent of the capacity of projects at an advanced stage of development. In the fossil fuel stakes, gas-fired projects accounted for more than two-thirds of the announced capacity of advanced non-renewable projects, while black coal-fired projects accounted for 32 per cent.

BREE executive director and chief economist Professor Quentin Grafton said that wind-powered and gas-fired projects, which together accounted for around three-quarters of those at an advanced stage of development in Australia, were expected to make a big contribution to the nation’s electricity supply over the next few years. “There is strong interest in the development of gas-fired generation because it is a relatively low-cost, mature technology with a lower emissions intensity than some other non-renewable options,” Professor Grafton said. And as for wind – which represents 89 per cent of advanced stage renewable power generation capacity (total capacity of 1099 megawatts) – Professor Grafton said this reflected supportive government policy measures and the “cost competitiveness of wind relative to other, less mature renewable energy technologies.”

The report also identified a further 167 projects as being at a less advanced stage of development (undergoing feasibility studies and/or awaiting approval), of which 114 plan to use renewable energy sources. But federal resources and energy minister, Martin Ferguson, warned that more projects needed to move to the committed stage if Australia’s energy demands were to be met in the future. “While these figures are encouraging, we still haven’t seen the actual investment on the ground in terms of the construction and operation of new plants in recent years that is going to be needed to meet demand," Minister Ferguson said. “The fall in the number of completed electricity projects over the 12 months to October 2011 highlights the need for investment certainty in clean energy generation." And the minister said that the government’s carbon price legislation should go some way to providing that investor certainty, he added that "the biggest threat to that certainty and meeting our investment requirements is Tony Abbott and the Coalition.”

Driving change in Sydney

The City of Sydney is getting set to go to tender for up to 12 new electric car charging stations to be installed across Sydney for public use in 2012. The charge points will be located in the Kings Cross parking station, Goulburn Street parking station and two street level carparks on Cope Street in Redfern and Wilson Street Newtown. They will be available for use to all EV and plug-in hybrid drivers, and will source 100% renewable energy from solar, wind or hydro. “Electric cars are the way of the future and will help Council reduce CO2 emissions from its vehicles by 20 per cent by 2014,” said Lord Mayor Clover Moore, referring to the City's plans to replace council inspection vehicles with up to 50 zero emission EVs over the next few years. “We’re already trialling two of the first production electric cars available in Australia, recharged by electricity from 240 solar panels on the roof of Sydney Town Hall," Moore said. The City also has 49 hybrid cars, 20 diesel-electric hybrid trucks and 84 maintenance and garbage trucks fitted with environmentally-friendly exhaust systems and filters. Australia’s first public electric vehicle charging station was installed in Derby Place, Glebe last year. It charges a plug-in Prius operated by GoGet car share, and is used by more than 500 residents and businesses in Glebe.
 
Moore, who recalled that the Sydney City Council used electric garbage trucks as far back as the early 1900s, said that demand for EVs was expected to grow as more EVs were produced and prices dropped, but stressed that the "critical infrastructure" had to be built first, if they were going to make a comeback as a viable choice in modern day Australia. The NSW government recently committed to establish a working party to consider urgently issuing a technical direction to reserve on-street parking bays for recharging stations, as requested by the Office of Environment and Heritage, Google, the City, NRMA and major property developers. The working party will also establish technical guidelines for councils.