The Federal Government has announced 25 solar researchers will share in $3 million to pursue their ground breakering work to make solar technologies cheaper, more efficient and more accessible.

Resources and Energy Minister, Gary Gray, announced the 25 solar grants as part of the Federal Government’s bid to build the solar sector.

"The fellowships will help build the skills and capabilities of mid-career solar researchers at institutions around the country to become the next generation of world-leading Australian researchers," Mr Gray said.

"From projects investigating techniques to reduce the cost of highly efficient common silicon solar cells to projects looking at ways to improve the efficiency of low cost organic solar cells, these researchers are exploring what could be game changers for the solar industry."

Project summaries

Name

Institution

Project summary

Matt Edwards

The University of NSW

This project aims to develop techniques to lower the cost of technologies used to create world record high efficiency solar cells to make cells suitable for cheap mass production, in collaboration with industry partners. This involves creative techniques involving laser doping, copper plating, and new module materials.

Xi Wang

The University of NSW

This project aims to reduce the cost of traditional high efficiency silicon solar cells by patterning finer features onto solar cells to harvest more solar energy, in collaboration with industry. This process enables less material usage and less process waste.

Jose Zapata

Australian National University

This project aims to improve the performance and economics of concentrating solar thermal plants by using Model Predictive Control techniques to predict plant operation and continually adjust the plant performance accordingly, for example maximising power output.

Nicholas Grant

Australian National University

This project aims to reduce the cost of silicon solar cells through developing methods to use silicon dioxide at room temperature rather than at very high temperatures with long oxidation times, which are costly to reach.

Andrew Nattestad

The University of Wollongong

The project aims to use a technique called “upconversion” to increase the energy value of cheap Dye-sensitised Solar Cells (DSC), which use a light-absorbing dye and a porous semiconductor network to generate electricity from sunlight; and Organic Photovoltaics (OPV).

Ajay K. Pandey

University of Queensland

This project aims to provide models of working solar cells that operate beyond the established limits of performance for standard cheap organic solar cells through investigating the use of creating multiple excitons per absorbed photon in certain class of organic semiconductors.

Hasitha Weerashinghe

CSIRO

This project aims to investigate ways to extend the lifetime of cheap, flexible organic solar cells, including the development of suitable encapsulation techniques. The technologies that are developed for organic cells will be widely applicable to all types of flexible, thin film solar cells

Sammy Lee

The University of NSW

This project aims to improve low-cost multi-junction solar cell production where layers of cheap silicon together are layered with more expensive and efficient material. This project will develop new buffer layers to modify the surface of the efficient material to minimise the energy loss that comes from different surfaces of the layered materials.

Binesh Puthen Veettil

The University of NSW

This project aims to develop a super sensitive tool to investigate the structure, and therefore, electronic properties, of materials.

Shuhua Peng

University of Melbourne

This project aims to investigate Graphene as an alternative to metal tin for the transparent conductive material required for cells to absorb light and create energy. This project includes development of a type of novel graphene-polymer hybrid material in the form of transparent thin film.

Katherine Booker

Australian National University

This project aims to investigate using “Metal assisted etching” to reduce approximately 20% silicon wastage  when micromachining straight, narrow, deep grooves along a Silicon wafer surface to create thousands of thin, flexible solar cells from just one wafer, called SLIVER cells.

Viktoras Dryza

University of Melbourne

This project aims to better understand the electronic structure of an organic dye and its performance within a dye-sensitised solar cell – which uses a light-absorbing dye and a porous semiconductor network to generate electricity from sunlight. This information will help guide the rational design of organic dyes for the future.

Xinbo Yang

Australian National University

This project aims create high efficiency n-type silicon solar cells using a technique called Laser Chemical Processing (LCP).

Yuan Fang

University of Queensland

This project aims to develop novel polymer-based acceptors for organic solar cells to “accept” electrons and create energy, as a more cost effective and efficient alternative to current acceptors.

Martin Belusko

University of South Australia

This project aims to develop a thermal storage system that is suitable for high temperature concentrating solar power systems to maximise heat transfer between the fluid and medium in the systems, thus increasing the dispatchability of the plant to the electricity grid and reducing cost. The research will investigate the use of different heat transfer fluids and storage medium.

Qunyu Bi

Australian National University

This project aims to improve the fabrication process for thin film solar cells that use tiny structures, one-thousandth the width of a human air, to direct light from the sun into the solar cell, increasing the amount of light that is absorbed and as a result increases the efficiency of the solar cell.

Bernard Mitchell

The University of NSW

Together with Sydney based start-up BT Imaging Pty Ltd, UNSW will aim to develop an automated tool to assist the silicon solar cell industry to effectively select the raw material prior to cell manufacturing, and hence avoid wasting resources on the production of low performing solar cells.

Hongtao Cui

The University of NSW

This Project aims to establish a process to reliably produce high efficiency CZTS solar cells with the potential for upgrading to a pilot line.

Craig Johnson

The University of NSW

This project aims to use small metallic structures, such as spheres, pyramids, pillars and holes to scatter, concentrate and direct light in ways that allow thin solar cells to behave like thick ones in terms of efficiency, while keeping cost at a minimum. The project involves developing a low-cost and environmentally-friendly technique to rapidly produce high-quality arrays of these metal ‘nanostructures’ over large areas.

Yang Yang

The University of NSW

This project aims to improve silicon solar cell efficiencies and indirectly lower the cost of commercial cells through the development of a characterisation technique to understand and optimise light scattering characteristics within silicon solar cells to maximise the amount of light that is captured to create energy.

Murad Jehangir Yusuf Tayebjee

The University of NSW

This project aims to increase the efficiency of low cost organic solar cells by using materials that can convert the energy of one absorbed photon into two electrons without losing energy as heat. This process is called “singlet fission”.

Tianshi Qin

CSIRO

This project aims to increase the efficiency of low cost organic solar cells through novel cell structures.

Peerapat Vithayasrichareon

The University of NSW

This project aims to develop a framework and analysis tools for policy makers and industry stakeholders seeking to better understand the challenges and opportunities for driving investment in large-scale renewable generation, particularly solar, within the Australia National Electricity Market (NEM). Different policy options and related regulatory and market measures under a range of future scenarios will be assessed.

Timothy Jones

CSIRO

This project aims to scale up low cost printable dye-sensitive solar cells – which use a light-absorbing dye and a porous semiconductor network to generate electricity from sunlight – to the size of a standard solar panel, while maintaining efficiency levels.

Zi Ouyang

University of New South Wales

This project aims to improve the efficiency of solar cells by using self-patterning, nano-scale structures at the rear side of the silicon wafer solar cells.