Australia loses out on solar production
Updated
The largest producer of solar panels in Australia is closing up shop and moving its operations off-shore. BP Solar is an offshoot of British petroleum giant BP, and it says it can't afford to make solar panels in Australia. It means the loss of 200 jobs and it's another blow to an industry struggling to find its place in one of the sunniest countries on earth.
Presenter: Karon Snowdon
Speakers: BP Solar regional director Mark Tweiddel; Greens Senator Christine Milne; Acting Industry Minister Craig Emerson; Philip Jennings Professor of Energy Studies at Australia's Murdoch University
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SNOWDON: BP-Solar's manufacturing plant in Sydney is the biggest in Australia and in all the southern hemisphere. Regional Director Mark Tweiddel says earlier plans to expand production are dead and the company is moving offshore in March.
TWEIDDEL: We're operating a plant at about one twentieth the size of our competitors ans we need to lower the cost of the product.
SNOWDON:The company's announcement has aroused politicians. The opposition party the Greens says the BP closure is a tragedy - one the Federal government should be helping to prevent. Greens Senator Christine Milne wants government action now.
MILNE: If this was a coal mine the Prime Minister would be falling over himself to tell Australians that we had to rescue the coal mine, rescue the car manufacturer, rescue the aluminium smelter. Now these are sophisticated manufacturing jobs and they're the very kinds of jobs that Australia needs but the signal that the Government is giving is that its not interested in sophisticated green collar jobs what it wants is to maintain the jobs in coal mines.
SNOWDON: The government says the company isn't asking for any help. Acting Industry Minister, Craig Emerson, says it would be futile for the government to offer assistance.
EMERSON: The news is most unfortunate and highly regrettable. It is however a commercial decision, the government has spoken with the company. The company is not seeking any support or assistance.
SNOWDON: The Australian operations of BP will move to its other solar plants in the US, China, India or Spain. All of these countries make solar panels more cheaply than in Australia, because says Mark Tweiddel, they can access cheaper silicon - a key ingredient in solar cells.
TWEIDDEL: The major cost component is the silicon wafer which we currently fly in from the US or China. We need to be closer to those suppliers, we need to be operating plants at 20 times the size of what we've got at Homebush Bay today.
SNOWDON: Australian scientists emerged as world leaders in solar technology three decades ago. Many have left the country to take up opportunities elsewhere. A robust solar thermal industry is being established in California using technology developed by Sydney University One of China's richest men, Zhenrong Xie, studied at the University of NSW. His company Suntech Power is a major solar panel producer in China.
Philip Jennings Professor of Energy Studies at Australia's Murdoch University says the loss of this expertise and now BP is the result of Australian government policy failures.
JENNINGS: Well its a failure of governments over the last ten or 15 years to create the right environment for the grwoth of the photovoltaic industry. And it seems tragic we can't support an industry of our own on the basis of this very high quality research and development.
SNOWDON: It's a common complaint - a brain drain which afflicts Australia because industry lacks strategic planning. In this case one problem is the lack of down-stream value added production of Australia's rich source of silicon. Silicon gets dug up and shipped offshore for processing then imported at great expense - the very complaint made by BP's Mark Tweiddel. Philip Jennnings again.
JENNINGS: Germany, Japan, China all do downstream processing, they buy our metallurgical grade silicon and convert it to solar grade or semiconductor grade and then sell it back to us at 100 times the price they paid for the original material.
SNOWDON: But it sounds like a reasonably simple solution if industry and government were looking to the long term, so why hasn't it happened?
JENNINGS: Because under the Howard government there was no confidence in the industry. The Howard government's Minister for Resources and technology, Ian McFarlane used to say quite frequently he didn't think photovoltaic was part of the answer. There's been a big change since the Rudd government came in but it's rather late now.
SNOWDON: The Rudd government is set to announce the establishment of a Solar Power Institute possibly within months if its to keep an election promise. The closure of BP's solar plant in Sydney is a major blow to the country's ambitions of becoming a regional leader in the field of solar energy.
