Demand for solar power heats up

IT didn't take David Holland long to work out that the Asia Pacific climate partnership could be good for business.

Weeks before the partnership's first conference in Sydney, the chief executive of Solar Systems was fielding calls from Indian and Chinese officials.

In Sydney yesterday as an observer at business talks being held as part of the conference, Mr Holland said he hoped the partnership would offer money and support not just for clean-coal technology but also for the renewable energy industry.

"This looks like a very serious opportunity for us," he said. "We've been contacted by both Chinese and Indian delegates to talk about (our) ... technology.

"What we need is volume to bring the price down."



The Melbourne company has developed solar technology that can provide three times the power of similar systems.

Mirrored dishes reflect the sun's energy on to highly sophisticated panels developed for the satellite industry.

Funded by environmental philanthropists, Solar Systems has spent $40million on the technology and has built four small 1megawatt power stations for outback Aboriginal communities.

It is now working on developing a 150megawatt power station and hopes to help finance that through the federal Government's $500million Low Emissions Technology fund. At that price, it is no cheap venture. But Mr Holland said it would take only three or four orders to significantly drive costs down.

"What would help us would be a specific program (through the partnership) where we could target a certain volume of technology to be put across the region so we could group together and increase our order size," he said.

"If we could pull together three or four of those across the region, that would be huge in driving the cost down. It's our intention to compete with fossil fuels."

In March, Mr Holland and other company executives will meet Chinese officials interested in investing in solar power.