The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) is set to provide up to $46 million of funding to Australian solar pioneer 5B to increase manufacturing capacity for its innovative solar deployment system.
The company will be the first to receive funding from the Federal Government’s $1 billion Solar Sunshot Program, aiming to help expand Australia’s solar manufacturing industry.
5B’s automated solar deployment system – known as Maverick – uses prefabricated, prewired panels. ARENA said the technology has the potential to drastically speed up and scale up the roll out of solar farms, reducing the cost and labour intensity of current methods.
The funding will support the expansion of the company’s Australian manufacturing capacity in solar to produce at least 200MW of Maverick units at the company’s Adelaide manufacturing facility over the next three years.
The Maverick systems are expected to support the demand for increased deployment of large-scale solar across Australia.
ARENA CEO, Darren Miller, said ARENA is excited to be announcing the first project under the Solar Sunshot Program to support solar manufacturing in Australia and accelerate the renewable energy transition.
“This project represents the best of homegrown Australian technology and innovation in solar and we are proud to support 5B’s goals of making solar deployment faster, cheaper, safer and more efficient.”
Mr Miller said ARENA has a vision of reaching 1TW of installed solar PV in Australia by 2050 to achieve our renewable energy ambitions.
“Projects like this are what we need to get there,” he said.
“This represents a step towards building Australia’s resilience in the solar value chain as the global demand for renewable energy technologies, products and knowledge intensifies.”
5B CEO, David Griffin, said the funding would drive down 5B’s Australian production costs by 25 per cent and accelerate the company’s ability to offer large customers lower cost energy alongside the safety, speed and land efficiencies unique to the 5B Maverick solution.
“It means we can further strengthen our team, creating opportunities from the factory floor, in our field deployment crews, and specialists working on gigawatts of solar farm designs,” he said.
