The facility has been partially funded by a AUD3m grant under the Victorian Science Agenda Investment Fund. The collaboration will provide a platform for the partners to commercialize NANOPLAS, a revolutionary nanoplasmonic solar cell technology being developed at Swinburne.
Heading up the VSASF will be Professor Min Gu, director of the Swinburne Centre for Micro-Photonics, and Dr Zhengrong Shi, Suntech’s chairman and CEO as well as a fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering.
According to Professor Gu the group’s strong mix of research and business expertise will put them in a unique position to research, develop and commercialize the innovative solar cell technology.
He said, “This new NANOPLAS technology will allow for the efficient collection of solar energy from a wider color spectrum than cells currently being developed in other laboratories. This could make them twice as efficient as the current generation of cells, which would also make them significantly less costly to produce and therefore to use.”
Professor Gu added that a major advantage of the VSASF is that it will allow Swinburne researchers to work closely with Suntech throughout the research and development stages. This will ensure that the NANOPLAS technology can be easily transferred to the production line and complement Suntech’s Pluto solar cell technology.
Cooperation between Suntech and Swinburne began in April 2009 when the two parties announced their partnership for the development of nanoplasmonic solar technology. As an extension of that agreement, the VSASF is expected to promote further cooperation among Australia’s solar research community and could potentially be a precursor to a Suntech production facility in Australia.
Dr Shi said, “By combining Swinburne University’s strong research capabilities and Suntech’s R&D and manufacturing platform, we can accelerate the development of cutting-edge technologies to drive down the cost of solar. As solar reaches grid parity, in Australia and around the world, we are powering a revolution that will permanently redefine how the world uses energy.”
