Albanese talks up solar module making as PV pioneer heads Australia-India taskforce

Multi-award winning solar pioneer Renate Egan has been named as the co-chair of the Australia-India Solar Task Force, as the two countries get down to the details on the terms of major new clean energy cooperation deals which could include solar module manufacturing in Australia.

In a statement from New Delhi on Friday, prime minister Anthony Albanese said he and Indian PM Narendra Modi had exchanged terms of reference for the new task force that aims to accelerate solar PV deployment and enhance supply chains across the two nations.

Professor Egan, who is secretary of the Australian PV Institute and leads the UNSW’s Australian Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics, will co-chair the taskforce alongside eminent Indian scientist, Anil Kottantharayil.

The collaboration follows a recent warning from the head of the International Energy Agency that China’s domination of the global solar supply chain was becoming a major liability to the shift to net zero.

Egan is a strong advocate for Australia to establish its own solar supply chain, recently citing APVI “early estimates” that the market suggest could support around 1GW a year of local module manufacturing. She is helping in a “sand to solar” project that will outline the possibilities in Australia.

“We currently have a 4GW a year market, so it’s not unrealistic that we have a gigawatt of local manufacturing,” Egan told RenewEconomy in an interview last year.

“It doesn’t make sense for everybody to do everything. There’ll be elements of the supply chain where we will be able to do more, and we’ll be good at it, while there will be other parts that don’t add up economically.”

Egan also says she sees strong potential for Australia to excel in silicon refining, which could then be shipped away for conversion into wafers and cells, and then shipped back for the module manufacturing to be done domestically.

In a doorstop interview in New Delhi, Albanese said he had visited a major Indian company that was looking at “billions of dollars of investment” in Australia, including in the manufacture of solar panels.

“We think, in particular in solar, there’s enormous opportunities [for collaboration,]” Albanese told reporters.

“The manufacturing of solar panels [is] something we’ve been talking about, something we want to promote through the National Reconstruction Fund,” he added. “I want a future made in Australia.

“Prime Minister Modi and I also discussed the urgent need to address climate change and support the implementation of the Paris Agreement,” Albanese said in a formal media release.

“I am proud of the existing cooperation between Australia and India on solar and hydrogen – two technologies that are critical to our energy transition goals – and the opportunities for us to work more closely to secure critical minerals supply chains.”