{"id":57194,"date":"2021-12-22T05:14:38","date_gmt":"2021-12-21T18:44:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/?p=57194"},"modified":"2022-04-22T16:52:28","modified_gmt":"2022-04-22T06:22:28","slug":"australian-solar-research-mb2283","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/australian-solar-research-mb2283\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia&#8217;s Crucial Role In Affordable Rooftop Solar"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"youtube-wrapper\"><iframe title=\"How Australia Delivered Affordable Solar To The World\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/YIUgGpdqH7k?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>If it wasn&#8217;t for Australian research and innovation, solar panels might not yet be as affordable as they are today. SolarQuotes founder Finn Peacock briefly explains why.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Transcript begins &#8212;<\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s take a look at Australia&#8217;s incredible solar history. The modern <a href=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/panels\/\"> solar panel<\/a> was effectively invented in Australia by a team at the University of New South Wales led by a Dr. Martin Green<sup class='endnote'><a href='https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/australian-solar-research-mb2283\/#en-57194-1' id='enref-57194-1' onclick='return hhEndnotes_show(57194)'>1<\/a><\/sup>. Martin Green set up a small research team in Sydney in the early eighties with an aim of improving the efficiency of solar cells. That team took the efficiency of a solar cell up to 25%. Since the team was founded, it has held the solar cell efficiency record for 30 of the last 38 years.<\/p>\n<p>Also in 1983, Martin Green personally invented the PERC<sup class='endnote'><a href='https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/australian-solar-research-mb2283\/#en-57194-2' id='enref-57194-2' onclick='return hhEndnotes_show(57194)'>2<\/a><\/sup> solar cell. Now, this type of solar cell is currently found in 90% of panels produced today.<\/p>\n<p>The team is currently working on stacking silicon cells on top of each other, and they&#8217;re aiming to get to 40% efficiency at the cell level &#8211; insane!<\/p>\n<p>But not only did Martin Green do all that with the underlying solar technology, his research students went on to found and lead many of the multi-billion dollar solar companies that nailed low cost solar panel production in China; dropping the cost of solar panels over 95%. Without Martin Green and his researchers in Sydney, we wouldn&#8217;t have the low-cost, high-performance solar today companies like Tindo Solar can make for our homes.<\/p>\n<p>&#8212; Transcript ends<\/p>\n<p>This segment was from SolarQuotes TV <a href=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/australian-solar-sqtv11-mb2272\/\">Episode 11: The Australian-Made Solar Edition<\/a> \u2013 showcasing Australian researchers and manufacturers transforming the global renewable energy scene with their technologies.<\/p>\n<h2>More On Martin Green<\/h2>\n<p>Among the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Martin_Green_(professor)\">many accolades<\/a> Professor Green &#8211; aka &#8220;the father of photovoltaics&#8221; &#8211; has received was the very prestigious Japan Prize\u00a0 in the field of \u201cResources, Energy, the Environment, and Social Infrastructure\u201d this year.<\/p>\n<p>As Finn mentioned, Professor Green has been a mentor to many. He has supervised more than 120 PhD students over the course of his long career; one of those being Shi Zhengrong. Mr. Shi knocked on the Professor&#8217;s door in 1989 looking for work, but was instead offer a scholarship to do PV research.<\/p>\n<p>Dr. Shi went on to found solar panel manufacturer <a href=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/panels\/suntech-review.html\">Suntech<\/a><sup class='endnote'><a href='https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/australian-solar-research-mb2283\/#en-57194-3' id='enref-57194-3' onclick='return hhEndnotes_show(57194)'>3<\/a><\/sup> and more recently <a href=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/panels\/sunman-energy-review.html\">Sunman Energy<\/a>; which produces flexible solar panels that are a fraction of the weight of their conventional counterparts.<\/p>\n<p>Commenting on the evolution of solar power, in January this year Professor Green said:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;&#8216;Early in my career, solar was interesting but terribly expensive. Now it embodies the long-standing hope of an abundant, inexpensive renewable resource.'&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The cost per kilowatt of rooftop solar in Australia has dropped from around $15 a watt prior to 2008 to around 95c a watt in November 2021 according to the SolarQuotes <a href=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/price-explorer\/\">Australian Solar Price Index<\/a>. I remember paying $1,000 for a 100W Suntech panel for an off-grid setup back in 2008 &#8211; so, $10 a watt. You can pick up a 100W module for around a hundred bucks nowadays.<\/p>\n<p>That Australian research played such an important role making <a href=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/solar101.html\">installing solar<\/a> more accessible to so many people is something we can all be very proud of.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If it wasn&#8217;t for Australian research and innovation, solar panels might not yet be as affordable as they are today. SolarQuotes founder Finn Peacock briefly explains why.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":57195,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[678],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-solar-battery-news","entry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.2 (Yoast SEO v27.2) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Australia&#039;s Crucial Role In Affordable Rooftop Solar - SolarQuotes Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"If it wasn&#039;t for Australian research and innovation, solar panels might not yet be as affordable as they are. 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