First published JoNova; Subsidising capacity expansion in the middle of a glut – these jobs will evaporate as soon as the subsidies dry up.

Global glut turns solar panels into garden fencing option

Europeans find alternative location for cheap green technology with cost of rooftop installation so high

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“This is the result of solar panels getting so cheap that we’re just putting them everywhere,” said Jenny Chase, lead solar analyst at BloombergNEF. “Since installation cost — labour, scaffolding — is the vast majority of the cost of installing a rooftop PV [photovoltaic] system, it can make sense.”

“Why put up a fence when you can just put up a load of solar panels, even if they’re not aligned exactly to the sun?” says Martin Brough, head of climate research at BNP Paribas Exane. “Where the panels themselves are just incredibly cheap, the constraints become the installation costs and the sites . . . you get a bit of a DIY mentality.”

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In Europe, industry executives are warning of imminent trouble for a sector that has been plagued by job losses, bankruptcies and closures in recent months. 

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Read more: https://www.ft.com/content/2ea6bf6d-04e9-453b-a35f-cd6431cfc7bf

You would think a market signal like this, where even Chinese manufacturers are beating a retreat, might be an indication to avoid investing in solar panel manufacturing. But the economic incompetents who run Australia have no intention of letting a savage global glut in manufacturing deter them from wasting taxpayer’s money.

Solar Sunshot for our regions

Thursday 28 March 2024
The Hon Chris Bowen MP Minister for Climate Change and Energy
The Hon Ed Husic MP Minister for Industry and Science
The Hon Penny Sharpe MLC NSW Minister for Climate Change and Energy
The Hon Courtney Houssos MLC NSW Minister for Domestic Manufacturing and Government Procurement

The Albanese Government’s $1 billion investment in the Solar Sunshot program will supercharge Australia’s ambition to become a renewable energy super power at home and abroad.

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Solar SunShot will help Australia capture more of the global solar manufacturing supply chain through support, including production subsidies and grants.

This will help ensure more solar panels are made in Australia, including in the Hunter Region, where the Prime Minister made the announcement at the site of the former coal-fired Liddell Power Station.

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“Australian research helped invent the modern solar panel – today’s announcement is about creating Australian jobs to help manufacture them. [Climate and Energy Minister Chris Bowen]

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“Solar panels were our idea, we should be making them here and that’s what we’ll do. Aussie know-how is creating Aussie jobs, that’s what a future made in Australia is all about.” [Industry and Science Minister Ed Husic]

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Read more: https://www.pm.gov.au/media/solar-sunshot-our-regions

Those jobs make no economic sense, they will exist at the pleasure of politicians, and will evaporate as soon as the subsidies dry up. What a shocking betrayal of the workers.

Manufacturing solar panels is an energy intensive process. It requires vast amounts of cheap, dispatchable energy. Coal producing regions of China dominate solar manufacturing, because they can supply the steady, low cost supply of power required to run silicon manufacturing processes such as zone melting, a critical stage in the solar manufacturing process in which a rod of silicon is run through a 1400C (2500F) furnace – the impurities collect in the melt spot.

The current glut of solar panels cannot supply the magnitude of reliable energy required for these processes. No renewable source other than hydro can supply the energy required. That energy has to be rock solid dispatchable, otherwise entire batches of silicon material can be ruined. Solar manufacturing requires absolute precision to produce product of the required purity.

Only coal, nuclear and gas can supply the magnitude and stability of energy required to manufacture solar panels, at a price comparable to China.

The saddest part of this charade, Australia actually has the capacity to challenge Chinese manufacturing. All we need is for politicians to remove Australia’s obstacles to competitiveness.

If Australia ditched green energy targets, and made full use of our coal and nuclear energy resources, we could go toe to toe with China in terms of energy cost.

Australia was once a manufacturing powerhouse in the 1950s, we could become that powerhouse again. But first we would need to get rid of the parade of political incompetents who for over 70 years have squandered Australia’s opportunities by messing up the economy and throwing money at pointless stunts, like this latest “Solar Sureshot” boondoggle.