Ever thought of a solar panel like a piece of toast? No, we haven’t either. But our latest guest has.
We can all agree that solar panels are great. They are helping millions of Australian households to reduce emissions and energy bills, while displacing fossil fuels from electricity networks around the world.
But SunDrive founder Vince Allen thinks they can be even better.
Together with co-founder David Hu, he began developing a new kind of solar cell a decade ago in a suburban Sydney garage.
Their goal was more efficiency. In simple terms, they wanted to convert more of the sunlight that hits the panel into electricity.
More efficiency means more energy from fewer panels, which matters when space is limited - like on a smaller roof.
But beyond increasing efficiency, they wanted to reimagine the ingredients that typically make up a panel to utilise more abundant and affordable materials.
No silver lining
Vince emerged from the University of New South Wales’ Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics, which has pioneered technology found in virtually every solar panel made today.
The Centre’s researchers have also held world records for solar efficiency for the best part of the last forty years.
He is quick to admit that he never finished his research.
“I founded SunDrive during my PhD at UNSW. A full disclaimer, I didn’t actually finish my PhD… SunDrive came around and it was quite a big opportunity,” he told Nick and Alex.
SunDrive founders Vince and David
“The reason for starting SunDrive was really to accelerate the development in what we think the next generation of solar technology can be.”
Vince and David looked at the raw ingredients of a solar cell to find ways to reduce costs. Rather than use silver like everybody else, they decided to experiment with copper - a far more common and cost-effective metal.
Vince explains that solar production is on track to grow five fold by the end of the decade, and “copper is about 100 times cheaper per kilogram and 1000 times more abundant.”
They have also proved that the less exotic material is no barrier to performance.
“The big milestone for us is at the end of 2021, we showed that we can also improve the efficiency above and beyond what is attainable with silver,” he told us.
After some virtual high fives (thanks to Sydney’s covid lockdown), the SunDrive team turned their attention to setting up a pilot facility capable of producing 20 million cells per year.
Vince insists they will manufacture their cells locally to take advantage of Australian expertise, strong local demand for panels and clean, low-cost renewable energy.
“Australia is blessed with the best minerals in the ground for solar manufacturing. Australia is in the top three global reserves for every major mineral required to make a solar panel, which no other country can really say.”
Tasty slice of solar
He turns to an elaborate toast analogy to explain how their design differs from other solar manufacturers.
“The raw ingredient to make bread is wheat… for solar, the raw ingredient is silicon or quartz, which is basically sand. You turn that into silicone,” he begins.
Like slicing bread, he explains the silicone ‘loaf’ is cut up finely to get silicon wafers.
Instead of spreading butter, jam or even avocado, they heat up the silicon wafers and apply different materials to produce a cell.
“You can think of the jam being the silver. And what we do is replace the silver with copper, which is a better performing lower cost metal,” he explains.
“I mean, this may start to get quite contentious. Essentially what we do is we replace jam with a tastier and cheaper spread."
Vegemite plays the role of copper. The result has been multiple new records and a price point Vince says is 20 to 30 per cent cheaper than their high performing rivals.
He is proud of the achievement.
“The company that held the previous world record for efficiency was a huge overseas solar manufacturer… I think with like 50,000 employees, 10 billion dollars revenue per year and a hundred billion market cap,” he tells us.
In comparison, SunDrive currently employs 35 people. Despite their modest size, the success is attracting big names in the investment community, with Blackbird, Mike Cannon-Brookes’ Grok, Main Sequence, the CEFC and ARENA already on board.
The short term goal is to scale up production with a new, largely automated manufacturing facility. Initially, they plan to focus on the rooftop solar market, where efficiency is vital to generate the most energy from limited space.
He is optimistic about Australia’s potential to become a renewable energy superpower.
“Australia really does have one of, if not the easiest paths to net zero. But Australia shouldn’t stop there… where the really big opportunity is Australia helping other countries get to net zero,” he said.
“Australia is the sunniest continent. It is the second windiest after Antarctica. There’s a very large landmass, with very small population density. We’ve really got all the right ingredients in a net zero world to really flourish and thrive.”
He believes that building on Australia’s already world-leading rates of solar installations will be key to a successful energy transition.
“I am a very big believer in solar with battery storage and electric vehicles, and I really do see that the majority of our future energy needs will be met by having a big solar system on your roof, by having battery storage, by having electric vehicles.
Join the conversation
Thanks to you all for being part of A Positive Climate and sharing your ideas and questions. If you want to ask Nick or Alex a question or share your thoughts, email hello@apositiveclimate.com or hit us up on LinkedIn or Instagram.
Stay on the pulse of climate innovation and subscribe to our newsletter. There will be a bit about the podcast, but also other news about the latest tech and innovation you will love.
Don’t forget to hit FOLLOW in your podcast app and look out for us in your feed with another episode every fortnight on Tuesday mornings.
- Nick and Alex
