Australian solar hybrid firm eyes major manufacturing deal

Technique Solar, an Australian company developing hybrid solar technology that combines electricity generated from solar cells with heat collected in solar collectors, says it has signed a series of deals that should see manufacturing commence in India, China and Australia in 2013.

The technology that Technique is attempting to bring to market was first developed at Melbourne’s RMIT University nearly a decade ago. The Technique Solar Modules boasts an efficiency rating four times that of current household panels because of its ability to use heat for hot water and reverse cycle air conditioners.

The deals with an un-named Chinese manufacturer and a newly formed Indian subsidiary comes after several years of tweaking the product, helped by an agreement with Melbourne-based auto-parts group Composite Materials Engineering.

CME helped overcome several production issues and “unforeseen holdups” and has now developed a modular manufacturing process that can be repeated in India and China.

CME managing director Brian Hughes says the company has invested $1 million so far in designing the assembly lines and expects to spend another $5-$6 million by the time the first of its modules roll off the production line in Australia in mid 2013.

“At the same time we will be continuing to support Technique Solar’s overseas manufacturing companies so that by the end of 2013 production should be occurring in all three countries,” Hughes said. The Chinese and Indian production lines will dwarf the initial Australian production capability, simply because the markets in each country are so much bigger.

The new manufacturing deals replace a previously announced agreement with the US-based Magna Cosma, one of world’s largest car component manufacturers. That deal fell through because of the “tyrannies of distance”.

Technique Solar says its technology breakthrough is the use of a concentrator lens to focus the suns rays onto a photovoltaic (PV) cell array. This means 75 per cent fewer PV cells are required to produce the same electrical energy as the traditional flat plate array of the same area as the lens, and the production of heat energy as well.

It says this gives the technology a solar conversion efficiency of more than 60 per cent, compared to less than 20 per cent for most conventional PV panels.

The technology was developed by staff at RMIT, who transferred to the new company in 2009. However, the company has had to rely on private investor support rather than public funds.

““We have done all of this without one dollar of government support,” Technique Solar director John Keating said. “We have had to rely on people who believed in what we were trying to do.

“Along the way and as recently as six months ago new investors joined to put us within striking distance of achieving everything we set out to do, that is to become a financially successful company for our investors and make Australia a world solar energy leader,” Keating said.

According to the company’s website, it has high ambitions – the creation of “smart solar” grid and the installation of some 2 million Technique Solar modules in Australia, which would provide a total installed capacity of 3,500 MW of solar power.