Solar 'Breakthrough' in the News

This headline "Breakthrough in Solar Efficiency by UNSW Team Ahead of its Time" caught my eye after the morning radio talked to Professor Stuart Wenham, University of New South Wales.

The research into solar photovoltaic panels has been going for 30 years or more and the University of NSW has been one of Australia's leading lights. So this research breakthrough, that of developing technology to use  lower grade silicon is welcome.

Many research breakthroughs go on to enhance products we the consumer can buy and lets hope the potential of this one will filter through quickly to production. Anything that decreases the cost of solar panels is good news.

But many of Australia's R & D is sent overseas to be manufactured. Manufacturing here is hard with high costs of labour, machinery and property. Like CSIRO's long fight to claw back royalties from infringed patents over wi-fi, lets hope this discovery, if found to be as good as the media hype, enables any $$ earned to be ploughed back into more solar research & large scale development.

I hope to enhance my current solar generation with more panels in the future, so cheaper means better for me and I hope the environment. I wonder what happened to the Solar Sliver research? This article paints the sad picture with a comment from Origin energy "that current market circumstances did not support investment in new technology."