From the outside, the sliver cells story would seem to be a model of successful university-industry technology transfer and commercialisation. From the inside, however, the story is very different.
In 2003, following transfer of the technology, funding from Origin for research at the Australian National University was cut. Since then, Blakers' group has developed an improved second generation of sliver technology, but government support has almost evaporated.
In his office, little more than a stone's throw from Canberra's Parliament House, Blakers complains that for the last couple of years, he has been forced to let one member of his staff go every few months. Meanwhile, Origin is now looking for an offshore partner to manufacture the cells on a large scale.
While Australia's dwindling handful of solar energy researchers struggles to survive on tiny grants, their German counterparts are flush with cash. Centres like the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems in Freiburg and the Institute for Solar Energy Research in Stuttgart muster hundreds of staffers and receive dependable annual budgets of tens of millions of dollars.
"Here within Australia, we've got a firm foothold in the industry, we've got the ability to grow rapidly but, unfortunately, we do not have the financial resources to match our competitors — in Europe in particular," a frustrated Blakers explains. "We are simply falling behind our competitors, and will 'drop off the tree' in the next five years or so if nothing dramatic happens."
Even Green's pioneering group at UNSW, which for more than 20 years has been setting world records for efficiency in silicon wafer solar cells, is not immune to pruning. Continued funding for its photovoltaics research is subject to annual review by a committee of sceptical senior scientists. At a recent meeting a senior member, to Green's dismay, questioned whether there was any evidence of a cost to the environment from carbon emissions.
Green's approach to reducing the need for silicon is CSG: crystalline silicon on glass. In this technology, a thin film of amorphous silicon, less than two micrometres thick, is deposited onto a glass sheet. The silicon is heat-treated in a furnace to turn it crystalline. Lasers and ink-jet printing technology are used to build the electrical contacts. CSG uses 99 per cent less silicon than the conventional wafer technology.
Commercial development of CSG technology began in 1995 with the formation of Pacific Solar, a joint venture between UNSW and Pacific Power, the state-owned electricity utility. This rather cosy relationship ended when, as a result of restructuring and privatisation, Pacific Power ceased to exist. CSG chief executive David Hogg quickly realised that, if his company was ever going to become a serious business, then Sydney was certainly not the place to be.
In 2004, Hogg and a handful of colleagues decamped to Thalheim, Germany. There, with new European investors, and a new name — CSG Solar — the firm has recently begun commercial production of thin-film silicon solar modules. As Hogg admits, however, after more than a decade of effort, module efficiencies are still down around seven per cent — one third that of the best wafer-based panels.
Long-term reliability may also be an issue. "Thin films actually do fairly well in Germany, where it's overcast much of the time," Mints says, "but I'm really cautious about how they'll do in Spain and Portugal with the Sun beating down on them."
