Australia and China – a solar energy story, with more achievement to come
China’s solar story is Australia’s solar story. It is an untold story of Australian innovation and climate change action. Everywhere I went in China, I met Aussies. So many of the leaders of China’s PV industry – indeed the global PV industry – were trained in Australia, at the University of New South Wales or the Australian National University.
Suntech is just one example of Chinese and Australian innovation, action on climate change and strategic investment in solar.
The solar partnership between Australia and China is making the economics of solar persuasive, and the introduction of a carbon price, the establishment of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and the continuation of the Renewable Energy Target will open up investment opportunities.
Power in numbers: Tapping the Aus-China solar alliance, REneweconomy, By John Grimes on 4 May 2012 Greg Combet’s recent visit to China for the annual Australia-China Climate Change Forum was a timely reminder of the strong action China is taking to cut its carbon pollution levels and the importance of the partnership between Australia and China in reducing global greenhouse gas emissions. Nowhere is that partnership more important than in the clean energy space.
As the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter, largest population centre and second largest economy, China is facing the extraordinarily difficult challenge of disconnecting its rapid economic growth from soaring greenhouse emissions. China is introducing a pilot emissions trading scheme in seven provinces, with a combined population of 250 million people, before introducing a national emissions trading scheme from 2015-16. China is committed to reducing its national carbon output per unit of GDP by 17 per cent by 2015, and 40-45 per cent by 2020.
China has also made a strategic investment in renewable energy, with the unstated aim of leading the world as it moves into the next industrial revolution. China is already the world’s leading manufacturer and installer of wind turbines and is the home of seven of the world’s top ten solar PV manufacturers (up from four in 2009). It won’t be long before China takes the lead as the largest installer of PV……
The US, Chinese and Indian Governments have now all said they expect
PV to be competitive with fossil fuels by 2020 at the latest. Indeed,
China is likely to reach grid parity for industrial users by 2014, and
for residential users by 2017. By this point, China is expecting to
have more than 100 gigawatts of installed solar capacity.
The dramatic change in the economics of solar is a game-changing
outcome with profound implications for Australia’s energy future. It
may be the driver that allows Australia to go beyond the International
Energy Agency’s projection that solar could provide five per cent of
Australia’s electricity by 2020 (it’s around one per cent now) and the
global projection of fifty per cent of global electricity demand being
met by solar by 2050.
China’s solar story is Australia’s solar story. It is an untold story of Australian innovation and climate change action. Everywhere I went in China, I met Aussies. So many of the leaders of China’s PV industry – indeed the global PV industry – were trained in Australia, at the University of New South Wales or the Australian National University.
Suntech is just one example of Chinese and Australian innovation, action on climate change and strategic investment in solar. Its founder and Chief Executive, Dr Shi Zhenrong, is an Australian
citizen, educated at the School of Photovoltaics at the University of
New South Wales. Its Chief Technology Officer, Dr Stuart Wenham, is an
Australian citizen, who is also the Deputy Director of the School of
Photovoltaics at UNSW. Many of its senior executives have strong
connections to Australian universities, and Suntech itself has a
partnership with UNSW and Swinburne University in Melbourne……
Every solar company I visited in China asked the same question – if
you have so much sunshine, if you have such great people, why don’t
you have a strong solar industry? It is a question I ask myself every
day, but I am confident we are closer to solving that puzzle.
The solar partnership between Australia and China is making the economics of solar persuasive, and the introduction of a carbon price, the establishment of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and the continuation of the Renewable Energy Target will open up investment opportunities.
Within a few years, Australia will start to see significant investment
in solar in remote mining communities, the development of a commercial
and community solar industry and the establishment of larger solar
farms and Flagship projects. Over time, this will also create
manufacturing opportunities in Australia. Then we will begin to meet
our potential as the sunburnt country……
http://reneweconomy.com.au/2012/power-in-numbers-tapping-the-aus-china-solar-alliance-62373
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