Suntech winds up solar R&D in Australia as policy uncertainty bites

Chinese solar manufacturer Suntech Power has announced it will close its Australian R&D activities, at least partly due to fears around the future of renewable energy in Australia.

Suntech was initially founded based on PV technology researched and developed at UNSW, where company founder Shi Zhengrong was a leading researcher.

Despite collapsing under the weight of debts more than a year ago, the company remained committed to its Astralian R&D, and its research team of about one dozen people.

However, that is now to be wound back, with research activities being concentrated in its Chinese headquarters.

“Suntech understands the importance of our R&D operations and in order to enhance the integration of our efforts we have recently decided to consolidate all of our R&D into a more centralized function in China,” Suntech Power’s director of global marketing, Hui Wu, said in an emaile statement to RenewEconomy.

“This decision follows our successful corporate restructuring and acquisition by Shunfeng and aligns with our expanded research priorities and our business strategy, which now spans upstream solar products manufacturing to downstream power generation and applications.”

He said the R&D team in China will continue to explore opportunities to collaborate with research institutions and universities around the world.

This included SunTech’s partnership with UNSW on projects such as the 22 per cent conversion efficient P type cell/Hydrogenation R&D project led by Professor Stuart Wenham, and the Perovskite type tandem cells R&D project led by Professor Martin Green.

He said the company had “more than $6 millio committed to projects with UNSW until 2018.

Wu stressed that although they continue with partnerships in Australia, “our focus on other solar verticals such as Inverters, energy storage, micro grids etc. means that we need to expand our partnerships and collaborations across several excellence centers.

“Consolidating the coordination of our R&D in China will allow us to integrate our expanded areas of scientific focus and enhance the collaboration among our global teams.”

According to the Sydney Morning Herald the Australian R&D arm employs around a dozen people.

The managing director of the unit, Dr Renate Egan, said that due to political stances and restructuring it is obvious that “clearly the market’s not going to grow here”.