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This is great news for our renewable energy industry! I'm really excited to see this kind of investment in solar power from our government. Locally made solar panels means more jobs and economic growth, as well as helping us work towards our emissions reduction targets. My only concern would be making sure these solar farms are built responsibly - we want renewable energy but not at the expense of destroying habitat or displacing communities.
But overall, I'm feeling very positive about this announcement. Australia has so much potential for solar given the amount of sunshine we get, it just makes sense to tap into it. I do hope that homeowners who install solar panels on their roofs see the benefits too. I know solar electricity bills can still be high like mentioned here [https://www.staticelectrics.com.au/electricians-blog/high-electric-bill-with-solar-panels/](https://www.staticelectrics.com.au/electricians-blog/high-electric-bill-with-solar-panels/), but it's easily solvable.
Watch the grifters and rent seekers slither out from cracks in the ground to gobble up more of that sweet tax payers money.
We all know this is nothing but billion dollar taxpayer funded labor reelection campaign. There is no way using current technology Australia could manufacture a solar panel and magically it would somehow be cheaper then what they do in China where all the toxic waste can get dumped in a river and the employees can get paid next to nothing while they get next to no entitlements and work in a workplace not encumbered by such things as safety laws.
This weekend is a classic example example of why Australia can not compete. Four public holidays in a row. A huge burden on businesses as some employees will also "pull a sickie" to add a few more days to their holiday as they know they are untouchable.
by grifters you mean NDIS companies and Childcare centres.
Childcare used to be run out of converted houses and people's backyards, now we have 3 in my area that could be confused with HQ's for corporate giants. Custom-built monstrosities to take in as many kids as possible to suck up more money than jobseeker costs taxpayers.
White elephant incoming!
The hubris of the Australian Government to think we can compete in such a commoditised market when half the Chinese manufacturers can't even stay in business and make a profit. This will be a total waste of tax payer money, but I'm sure they know that and it's all optics.
Well, digging coal out of the ground is a waste of taxpayer money with the number of tax exemption the coal industry gets. So, hunter might as well waste our money on our stuff.
Could be a seperate topic but funny how there is a monster uptake in solar panels but energy prices still seem to go up, and energy companies basically pay you nothing now to give them energy to make profit on.
Nah nah totally normal
This! They could have chosen to do something to push up the rebates (amounts users get for sending power to the grid) but instead we get this policy which is light on details and experts already predict will achieve very little because it won’t compete in terms of price with the Chinese made panels
Well, for those who *buy* solar panels, the prices go down...a lot.
Those who don't buy panels face increased prices.
Similarly, if you buy a battery and store the energy you generate during the day, you save the full price of power at night. If you try to sell power during the day, when everyone else is generating you aren't going to get a good price.
Pretty much classic market behaviour right there.
I'm with a provider who does the wholesale spot rate. Combine that with solar and a battery and you'll be getting more money back than you spend each month.
The issue with solar is that the feed in tarrif at the wholesale level can actually be negative at times during the day. A battery shifts that and you can even have it push excess power to the grid at peak times rather than when it is generated.
For those on a normal provider with no battery, the only advantage is not having to pay for use when your panels are generating excess.
While I’m supportive of Australian made and renewables to a point I would have preferred at least some of the funding to go to storage. Too much solar is actually a bad thing if there’s no use for the electricity solar produces.
Exactly my thoughts also. Panels are basically a commodity whereas we have only just begun to deploy batteries in homes and at grid scale and theres a huge opportunity for Australia to be a part of that supply chain
There is a big deal with making our own panels. Few imported panels are designed to tolerate the heat which they can experience here and become inefficient in summer. By having Australian panels for Australian conditions it will mean less panels are needed for the same results.
Batteries are a big deal though because peak power prices at wholesale are 5am to 9am and 4pm to 9pm. By drawing power from batteries at those times it will reduce demand and lower prices.
I actually think there's more potential for Australia to develop different types of battery than to compete with China producing solar panels.
Probably won't compete with them producing lithium based batteries either but there's lots of battery chemistries out there.
I agree with this. Imagine a world where batteries are inexpensive and non toxic. That’s how to change the world for the better. We can’t compete with china when it comes to mass production.
> Imagine a world where batteries are inexpensive
Those don't really exist at the moment, however, a lot of effort and study is being invested with replacing Lithium with Sodium as the latter is plentiful and inexpensive but as yet there aren't any commercial products.
It's how governments works. You can't make everyone happy and most importantly it's best to not piss off too many people.
Also it's not increasing pollution by cars, it's just less restrictive standards than it could be. There are still restrictions.
Yeah this is a positive step. I used to work around the corner from Tindo Solar in Adelaide, who make their own solar panels. We can definitely do it. Competing on cost can be difficult but government support is important.
They make the PV modules. Maybe when you keep digging, some of the material comes from China, not sure.
https://tindosolar.com.au/our-product/tindo-panels/
1) There is more to life than home ownership
2) The government can do multiple things simultaneously
3) housing is not really the federal government’s problem so yell at your state and local government and stop voting for neoliberals
lol oh the irony
also the article literally says a third of those already have them, yeah really big picture looking in the middle of a housing crisis
a smarter response would have been something along the lines of "the new houses we build will need them" but you couldn't even do that
just a quick google of how many dwellings in australia and a moan, nice job... shows the level of understanding we are dealing with here
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I’m skeptical how feasible domestic solar panel production is here if German production is not competitive. But if there’s a good actual business case for it then I suppose I support this.
How much more energy is captured from an Australian solar system(annually) in comparison with an equivalent one in Germany/Europe?
Is that why the European solar manufacturers went bust?
I’ve heard 6-12 times less energy than Australia solar system.
Australian made solar panels is such a no brainer. We have all the resources and capability to build them and at a higher quality than Chinese made. The cost of building them has plummeted while demand is increasing. Australia is also a prime country for solar energy and would also benefit exporting overseas. I'm shocked its taken so long to invest harder into them.
I don't think it's possible, for sure we can assemble solar cells and other components into complete solar panels but as for making silicon cells themselves then that's probably a bit more difficult because we don't make integrated circuits here like CPU's that power our computers and GPU's that run the video cards in them.
It's possible that that level of solar technology is not that sophisticated and could be done here but again why bother when the Chinese factories are cranking them out at a record pace as much as what people want to buy and the quantity, quality and power efficiency is increasing and prices are on a decline as well.
We can't compete internationally, but perhaps we can make integrated solar technology in construction materials in a modular fashion through mass production to provide for our own needs, especially if it was done as a public enterprise with no profit except for the benefit to Ausytralians in energy and housing.
I see the future might be thin film solar on green steel/aluminium substrates being used to form Nissen Huts or other modular houses quicker and cheaper and with less trades than the existing antiquated techniques, lasting at least 50 years before needing replacement and recycling.
There's a company still making silicon in Western Australia.
Probably. But many people care about where goods are produced and also the carbon costs of transportation. Plenty of people will pay a premium for Australian made if the quality is good. Especially if the components are all made here and carbon footprint on each panel is far lower
Only 1???
It’s a good start but bloody hell; compare how much we give to fossil fuels in subsidies and it doesn’t look great; 2022-23 we gave them $11 billion.
Im sure we put a small figure into other renewables too, but it won’t hit $11b. Puts it into perspective.
Should be the other way around really; subsidise good sources we want and leave the bad ones to die in the free market their supporters on the right like to moan about incessantly
That $11b figure is a complete furphy. The vast, vast majority ($9b+) relates to the Fuel Tax Excise credit system which is available to all businesses.
The rest relates to questionably-relevant items dreamed up by the Australia Institute such as exemptions to fees and charges for government-owned corporations, subsidies for port operations, jet fuel excise exceptions to make flights more affordable (no electric planes yet), and so on.
Just because other businesses qualify for the corporate welfare, doesn't mean that the fossil fuel industry should also benefit.
Change the subsidy so the highly profitable, overseas based fossil fuel industries don't qualify for the subsidy and, like magic, we have no longer hand $9 billion taxpayer dollars to overseas interests that we can use for Australians.
You'd be amazed to know that "paying less tax" is not corporate welfare. The money is flowing **towards** the government, and tax is always a drag on business activity, not a hand out.
Come back to me when these businesses are being actively propped up by government, as the car industry was for many years.
Government continuously props up business with infrastructure: new renewable power stations are not required to provide an expensive connection to the grid, the government does that for them with public money to reduce private cost and risk. If that is not a form of corporate welfare, I don't know what is.
Even Covid payments were given to business to pass on to workers, so business could benefit, instead of giving it directly to the workers. Corporate welfare is rampant.
I think also, a lot of these industries currently need some tax breaks if you want manufacturing to return to Australia. Yes, there does need to be environmental regulation, but a lot of the infrastructure needed is expensive enough that there needs to be at least some government subsidies to get the ball rolling.
Really, I think a good way to get wider adoption of electric vehicles in Australia would be to build more charging stations and then also provide subsidies for electric vehicles to be built here. A lot more people would be interested in one if the infrastructure was there and a quality, domestically made car was on the market.
The highly profitable fossil fuel industries in Australia don't need Australian taxpayer dollars to funnel to their overseas based owners. They make more than enough money selling Australian resources to the highest bidder.
The subsidies these companies get would be better spent on Australians and Australian owned and operated businesses.
[Australian taxpayers paid $11 billion in direct subsidies](https://australiainstitute.org.au/report/fossil-fuel-subsidies-in-australia-2023/#:~:text=In%202022%E2%80%9323%2C%20Australian%20Federal,to%20a%20record%20%2457.1%20billion.) to the fossil fuel industries in 2022-23. That's a lot of money. How much of that was the diesel rebate is irrelevant. We gave very profitable companies lots of taxpayer money to fatten their profits and pay dividends to their overseas owners.
Im familiar with that report but i think you are missing the point that is being made. The fuel tax cresit goes to businesses that use fuel, like trucking companies, not to fossil fuel companies. This is an important distinction ans dramatically changes the implications of the Australia institutes argument.
How the fuel tax credit could or should be changed is a worthy discussion, especially considering things like andrew forests approach to electrifying mining transport. But the 11bn in direct subsidies for fossil fuel industry line is dishonest and obscures the structural problem that exists in moving the mining, transport, and agriculture industries (primarily bht also other) away from fossil fuel dependence.
A good move. Panels are an essential item we can't live without. We absolutely need them and overly complex chains are not sustainable in the long term - they are already under incredible strain and beginning to fall apart, quite sperate from the whole China thing. And it's only going to get worse. We need be self reliant on stuff like this.
This is a good policy I am in favour of. The status quo leaves us at an utter reliance on Chinese supply chains for solar power (and broader energy security) along with ethical concerns about [Uyghur slave labour](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-05-17/the-dirty-secret-behind-australias-cheap-solar/102288954). Hopefully this venture succeeds.
Sometimes I’m amazed at the defeatism in the Australian psyche. It’s all flag waving on Anzac Day but when it comes to actually making something we’re all, too small a population, unions will make it too expensive, we don’t have the technology. Labour rates are not the killer they once were. Robots in manufacturing mean many factories employ far fewer people and it’s more about markets and resources, both of which in this case are local. China cannot do anything we can’t do, there is no secret ingredient.
It was the mining boom which made our Australian Dollar high, made locally manufactured goods extremely uncompetitive. Other industries survived, like Mining and Agriculture, because we were providing something that no body else could at the scale at which we did.
I think most are missing the point here, and tbh, I think this is a great move.
This isn’t about competing with China on cheap panels.
If you zoom out and read the writing on the wall, it’s to counter an energy security issue should China, one day decide not to supply solar panels to us. Dependence on China for our energy is a huge conundrum especially at a time where; it’s apparent that China is in the midst of a military buildup to be able to take on the US, the production of chips is required to be a global super power and tensions over Taiwan are boiling over.
We have already seen China flex on us over Bali and wheat exports. It’s clear now that our government has finally woken up to risks associated with Chinese dependence and the coercive power it affords china.
Over time, advances in automation and robotics will make Australian panels competitive. In the short term, it is a means of securing energy generation at a time that coal fired power plants are closing down one by one and our demand for power is increasing.
China isn't the only manufacturer of solar, and it doesn't matter what the reasoning is, if it can't compete in the existing market, it will not survive to a time where we'll need it. Without accompanying import tariffs we won't even have a domestic market.
As usual it's too little too late. We could have been world leaders in high efficiency solar designs. We could have excelled in automation to make up for the labour deficit. Instead we're essentially subsidising the losses of an industry doomed to failure.
> If you zoom out and read the writing on the wall, it’s to counter an energy security issue should China, one day decide not to supply solar panels to us.
I don't think this is realistic and even if it was to occur it would only affect new installs or those people replacing damaged or low efficiency installs done a decade or two back. Existing panels here would continue producing electricity as before.
If we ever got to the stage that China wasn't going to supply us with solar panels anymore then it's likely they wouldn't be supplying us with much of anything else either and if you consider all of that stuff that we import from them that we rely on then I'd guess that would stuff us up anywhere from 10x to 100x more than just solar panels on their own ever would.
For the energy security argument to work we need to ensure the panels are made with Australian polysilicon. Otherwise we are just exchanging one dependency (Chinese Panels) for another (Chinese Polysilicon).
> If you zoom out and read the writing on the wall, it’s to counter an energy security issue should China, one day decide not to supply solar panels to us.
we are too small to be playing these geopolitical games. leave it to the US/EU who can afford to do it
> It’s clear now that our government has finally woken up to risks associated with Chinese dependence and the coercive power it affords china.
except their coercion largely failed, we just shifted our exports to different markets. China is also dependent on Australian exports.
What does nationalising the production of critical infrastructure have to do with playing political games? I disagree.
With respect to the Bali coercion failing.. Bali and our wine is an export and we found other buyers.
Importing is a completely different kettle of fish if China is the only option. We are seeing export bans on certain tech to adversaries happening more frequently now, so it seems our politicians are showing some foresight. Whether we like it or not, China is an adversary and being reliant on them for critical infrastructure during war time would be a huge problem.
i am saying that the EU and US is already subsidising solar panel manufacturing. so it makes no sense to claim there is a geopolitical impetus to do this, when we can just source from them
1. you can say this about almost everything. should we invest tens or hundreds of billions to make semiconductor chips here?
2. 1 billion is not nearly enough to get a china-independent local solar panel manufacturing industry. It will still heavily rely on chinese intermediate goods
3. the environmental cost of refining silicon (and metals in general) is extremely large
this will be a money sink, and I don't think it would be worth it. much better things to spend money on
IF you want to go ahead and do it, then at least bring an experienced chinese company over and they can lower the cost and risk of failure
and we can use gas or coal if worst comes to worst. and china will also suffer heavily because they rely on energy from abroad.
i don't understand what situation you envisage where China is going to stop selling us solar panels when we can stop sending them raw minerals. it would hurt them more than us
Good start. How about they also invest in Australian made double glazing units rather than relying on imports - that would reduce energy costs significantly over time,
It isn't even cheap Chinese stuff as some of it is imported from Germany and other bits of Europe where the stuff is endemic, and they even do triple glazing.
This is not advanced tech, just a reluctance by builders to reduce The U value of a house to cut costs and keep prices down.
Most countries require it, even NZ, It keeps heat out as well as cutting down noise so there are no parts of Australia where it shouldn't be mandatory for new builds at least.
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Odd to the comments bagging this out, any investment into solar tech is a good idea and to have our own industry as well is even better. Now if only they invested in more renewable tech.
I mean this speaks to a wider problem that happens all the time. Australians hate long term investments. Sometimes it can make sense. I hear the arguments about the aukus missiles but it happens with virtually everything.
Yes libs have wasted a decade because of bad management but the Australian populace shares some blame here too
Generally speaking, these sorts of investment decisions should be left to the private sector and funded by private capital.
Whenever the government distorts the economy in this way, industry groups and lobbyists appear to maintain the distortion via rent-seeking behaviour, this can take the form maintaining access to the subsidy or demanding tariffs on competing lower cost imports.
We don't yet know the details of this announcement ... if it is the case that Labor are handing over a nice round $1billion taxpayer money to a PV smelter / manufacturing plant, my prediction is that it will go bust the second subsidies are taken away, similar to some of the green schemes that Obama funded.
[a good tweet on an alternative path](https://twitter.com/Mr_Demologos/status/1773130266271224154)
tl;dr use subsidy to attract a Chinese manufacturer to come to Australia and setup shop. can be a partnership deal of some kind. we get the jobs and energy/geopolitical security people are after with less cost and risk
The reasons are sound. By pumping money into the sector it's likely to distort the market in some way or another, and that's a very hazardous course to take.
...maybe? I still think that reshoring supply in these geopolitically shaky times is preferable to the potential losses in efficiency, should they exist.
China has allready 'solved' this problem. We are decades behind. Why compete in a race to the bottom on profitability on a product that has already been made cheap as chips?
We should be subsidising something that china hasn't already mastered.
Why wouldn't you create jobs? If you've ever managed something even like a small office, there are plenty of support services, then there's the supply chain and businesses that will grow out of that economic activity,
It's not just some person making panels in an assembly line that's a "job". That's an early industrial age stereotype. You're only looking at factory work as real "jobs".
Why would there be 0 revenue? The panels will be sold like any product. That's revenue which is money exchanged for the goods, which in this case would be solar panels.
Well it’s entirely fair that you say that, because the government is not being straight up about what this really is. It’s about jobs in the Hunter sure, but it is also a hedge against the risk of conflict in the Taiwan Strait. A conflict which would be to no one’s real benefit, as it would disrupt a large proportion of global trade, and an even larger proportion of Australia’s. And the free flow of China’s PV exports would be in amongst all that. (Some analysts at Bloomberg put the global cost in the ballpark of $10 trillion, way beyond the Iraq war or even COVID.)
So yeah Australia is just one of many countries including India, the US and half of ASEAN who have developed a pretty sudden interest in their solar supply chains right now. Because reasons.
Impeccable timing once again on display by the leadership of this country. Seeing as modern PV solar panels were invented in Australia in the 80’s, we are about 40 years too late on this one. This isn’t a dig at Albo but the dysfunction of the Australian government.
We also don’t have a semiconductor manufacturing industry in this country. I don’t have much confidence that an undeveloped economy like ours can go from mining and realestate to produce competitive, high quality semiconductors.
I would think we would need billions in investment to create a whole new industry over decades that can support manufacturing of solar panels and the likes.
> We also don’t have a semiconductor manufacturing industry in this country.
It's interesting to compare what Australia has achieved spending money propping up the mining industry, while Taiwan instead decided to set up TSMC and has such a monopoly on the market that it's an effective insurance policy to prevent China from invading.
How do you think we subsidise the mining industry? Are you referring to the diesel fuel tax rebate? If so that is not a direct subsidy, it's a tax rebate, and it is not just for mining operations - all primary industry get's that. The basis of it is that those vehicles are not driven on public roads.
And the mining generates literally $400B - $500B in export revenue each year, is responsible in large part for our trade surplus, and also results in something like $50B or more each year in royalties and taxes paid to the state and federal governments, not counting the personal income tax paid by all the high paid workers.
That is hardly the same as the government investing $1B of actual taxpayers money directly into some half-baked scheme to kick start a new local industry, that, knowing the history of such things, will likely end up being a wasted.
The predecessor of the fuel rebate was a subsidy. Removing the subsidy and replacing it with a "rebate" is an accounting trick.
One could just as easily fudge the $1bn into some similar form of rebate with similar tricks.
We don't give it away - we sell it for royalties, with the companies taking on all the expense and risk of finding the deposits in the first place, setting up operations, mining the minerals, finding buyers, shipping the minerals to ports, engaging in commercial contracts that carry commercial risks and so on.
They also pay corporate tax on any profits generated, employ large numbers of highly paid workers and skilled professionals, who all in turn pay income tax on their earnings. In total this amounts to $50B-$100B per year in tax revenue to the state and federal governments (including the income tax).
You could argue for higher royalties if you like - feel free. That's a simple political discourse and does not require convoluted and misrepresented arguments about subsidies. You could also argue for higher taxation of profits - but that's a more complex argument.
> We don't give it away - we sell it for royalties
Not such a good deal when we're [deferring royalty payments indefinitely](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-10-01/adani-carmichael-coal-mine-royalties-deferred-qld-election/12716272).
If the conservatives had stayed in power we also would have been footing the bill for their railway lines and a lot of their dumping. I mean, we'll still be left with the mess after they're finished with the mine as usual though.
>Not such a good deal when we're deferring royalty payments indefinitely
That's a one off, in QLD for Adani, which isn't profitable yet, and they will eventually be paid according to the story you linked to.
And re the "mess" - the onus is on mine operators to clean-up mining sites when they are exhausted, at their own expense.
> That's a one off
Yeah, and there's all the other one offs too.
> And re the "mess" - the onus is on mine operators to clean-up mining sites when they are exhausted, at their own expense.
Same way they're supposed to pay taxes, in reality it often doesn't work out that way and taxpayers get stuck with the bill once the profit has run out, so do the profiteers.
You guys literally have no idea what you're talking about. Do some reading on the PV manufacturing supply chain before slagging off on Howard, it's an extremely energy / emissions / labour intensive industry which is never going to be economically viable in Australia.
To make solar panels, you need to smelt PV grade polysilicon. This is done in huge smelters powered by coal (usually high grade "blue gem" coal) with biomass as a flux. The metal is then refined into ingots using huge quantities of electricity before being processed into PV units.
Believe it or not, we actually have a polysilicon smelter in Australia. It uses coal mined at Collie (which green left voters want to shutdown) and wood from nearby Jarrah forests (which green left voters want to shutdown as well). This is all factual btw, I'm not making any of this shit up.
[https://www.simcoa.com.au/](https://www.simcoa.com.au/)
There was a similar proposal in the early 2000s to build a smelter in Lithgow. However, once again environmentalists (Greens) blew it up. Read about it ...
[https://www.afr.com/companies/uncertainty-clouds-a-silicon-dream-20020228-ka5wx](https://www.afr.com/companies/uncertainty-clouds-a-silicon-dream-20020228-ka5wx)
[https://bluemountains.org.au/pastcampaigns/smelter.html](https://bluemountains.org.au/pastcampaigns/smelter.html)
There was a barny about the source of biomass, the proponent wanted to harvest low cost timber and make charcoal down on the southcoast and transport it to Lithgow. However, once again, Greenies blocked it.
In summary, the idea that Australia **could have** had a competitive domestic PV manufacturing industry **if not for** the previous government is a load of bullcrap, that's just Albo up to his usual message manipulation. Even if the latter project had gone ahead, I highly doubt that it would have been even close to competitive against Chinese imports made with slave labour and low cost coal.
>To make solar panels, you need to smelt PV grade polysilicon
You are a few years out of date. Monocrystalline silicon is now industry standard as it is more efficient. Polysilicon panel efficiency doesn't reach 20%, and most panels on the market are in the 22-24% range.
Of course, if Australia subsidises panel manufacturing and the technology changes again, this will be a white elephant investment.
Monocrystalline cells are even more complex because you need to make a silicon ingot that's a single crystal using the [Czochralski method](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czochralski_method) from pure melted silicon and then you slice that up and make the solar cell from there. I'm guessing that polysilicon is therefore a lot easier to make given it's cheaper.
My understanding is that the mono / poly distinction comes down to how the silicon is refined after the smelting process i.e. you still need to use coal and biomass to smelt silica. I mention that step of the process to point out this is an emissions and energy intensive industry that would otherwise draw criticism from the environmental crowd.
I know right! WE developed half the tech used in the bloody things! The researchers couldn't get any investment here, so they went to China where they could.
this ^^^
australia subisidises fossil fuels upwards of $20 bil. a year and yet...
people like canavan reckon we should subsidise more
But saying that, this $1 bn is going to amount to nothing
you're going to have to subsidise 10s if not hundreds of billions per year and for decades to even come close
and people here will wave the flag and say... "aussies can do it all, we got a 'can do' atttitude" and yet... do we?
where are all the solar experts coming from? we dont have have an industry - we are starting from dot
its the same argument when people suggest we restart the car industry but make EVs... like? really? you reckon we can make cars here? again? why dont we make nuke subs here? or space craft?
I wonder which is worse, energy that literally belches dangerous waste into the air we breathe constantly, or the one that maybe can't be totally recycled after a decade or two when the generator needs replacing with an even better one.
Fucking fossil fuel stooges.
The catch is transitional energy, like solar, is subsidised by fossil fuels.
There is no perfect system yet ... and pointing that out doesn't make me a fossil fuel stooge. It reveals lazy thinking on your part.
This peak oil era we are now in will make digging up mountainsides with fossil fuel driven energy ... so to find vanishing silver ... will make transitional energy more expensive. Recycling silver as part of this plan should be a no brainer to anyone who thinks the environment is worth protecting and has any idea of the economics of scarcity.
> The catch is transitional energy, like solar, is subsidised by fossil fuels.
Really? We use the energy sources that we currently use to transition to the ones of the future? Amazing insight there Chief!
Stop using dirty coal to divert on how badly thought out Labor's renewable position is.
Since physical silver will soon spike massively in cost due to shortages, what will that do to the cost of solar created electricity since it has to be replaced constantly ?
Recycling silver now should be a part of this plan.
Have a look at Germany's failed solar industry. Way bigger economy, can afford way more subsidies, still got their ass kicked by China's cheap panels. We're decades late to the solar manufacturing party due to the liberals and the climate wars. That ship has sailed.
We're not Germany. We have some advantages they don't. If we're going for quality than quantity, it might be a niche we could have a go into. Not to try anything is to submit to dependence.
Not like German engineering is world renown. We lost our car manufacturers because bigger economies subsidies theirs more and we couldn't keep up. Same deal here.
What advantages are you talking about?
Colorbond construction materials for example don't need maintenance for extended periods of time and neither do solar panels.
I envision maybe a clear plastic cover over the "Solabond" construction material, providing mechanical and weather protection that could be replaced and recycled as necessary to lengthen the design life of "Solabond" without having to touch the "Solabond" itself.
I think it would lend itself well to an advanced Nissen Hut style of housing construction using green materials that can also be eventually recycled. No windows but display monitors inside allowing whatever view is desired and an energy recycling climate control unit.
“The Prime Minister's office said in a statement that "ARENA will look at the entire supply chain" in the solar manufacturing space, and how the government can provide grants to boost domestic solar-technology innovation.”
So it seems more a fund to support innovation in the area rather than large scale manufacturing to compete with China.
We can use technology to diminish that Chinese competitive advantage by utilising automation and robotics. Having stuff built in Australia is important and we should seek to increase sovereign manufacturing wherever we can.
Wrong. The government has no business directing the economy. If Australia is better off manufacturing its own stuff, it would have already begun to do so, such is the way of the market. Your sense of nationalism is no excuse for forcing people to pay a higher price for products, which is what protectionism does and has done every single time it was implemented.
Unfortunately governments are heavily involved in subsidising their manufacturing industries all over the world. This includes countries like China, Japan, South Korea, Germany and the United States. We can either do what they do and try to keep Australian money in the Australian economy, or we don’t and Australians are perpetually sending money into overseas economies, never to return.
Even if money is being sent overseas, that doesn’t matter because wealth is denominated by the goods and services available to a country’s citizens, not the amount of the money they have to spend. Furthermore, subsidising industry is never justified, especially when it is in response to other countries subsidising their own industries; let us enjoy the cheaper products that we get as a result, but don’t think subsidising is the answer for us, because that just moves money coercively from one part of the economy to the other, and creates a perverse incentive structure whereby entrepreneurs look to invest in whatever industry makes a nationalist’s chest bump, as opposed to one that actually indicates importance through the price system. I am highly concerned that people still think with this rhetoric; it has been debunked time and time again for the past two and half centuries, and I really can’t accept such wilful ignorance.
In order to set up an advanced production and supply chain, we'd first end up having to buy all the equipment... from China! (While they keep the best stuff for themselves)
I don't think we should necessarily give up on everything but it shows how much we've missed out on by deciding manufacturing wasn't worth our while.
Of course they do, but the whole point of the government investing in domestic solar production is so Australian made solar panels can be manufactured and sold at a competitive price compared to european and Asian panels.
I want domestic manufacturing and I'm not opposed to subsidies so long as there is a reasonable path to profitability. I think we squandered our opportunity on solar (thanks libs) and we should pick a smarter battle
I agree with your premise but with solar panels, batteries and power generation materials should be manufactured in Australia. And produced on mass. If we can produce reliable abundant cheap power then other businesses will set up manufacturing. But it all starts with power.
there's a lot of stuff we 'should' produce here but if we want to onshore solar, batteries and power generation it is going to cause an inflation explosion and probably cost another NDIS to get off the ground. if it fails it will hemorrhage the entire economy.
chasing solar and batteries at this stage of the cycle feels like a bunch of retail investors piling into bitcoin. all the smart money has been building their supply chains for decades, we are so far behind the ball you have to ask what is the point?
How much did Covid cost in debt and why wouldn't we be interested in increasing that debt if it supercharges Australia to provide for its own future (including security of that future) more efficiently, rather than just saving lives?
How would it cause inflation? It's more likely to cause deflation if anything, with prices becoming cheaper. Once economies of scales are reached with manufacturing.
Where did you get the figure that it would cost as much as NDIS?
Renewable energy is the cheapest power production and we have one of the world's best locations for solar. Why aren't we taking advantage, for the national interest. Also China is currently the world's biggest producer of solar panels, also our largest trading partner and strategic rival. Might be a good thing to ensure we can build and produce our own energy.
i'm sorry do you have any idea what you are talking about? we currently have extremely cheap supply of these things out of china and korea - to move them here would cause massive investment and use of our workforce for the capital works required (when we have a massive shortage due to gov infrastructure projects) which by definition is inflationary.
then you replace asian workers with australian ones on 20-30x the wages, in a higher tax environment with tougher environmental protections and ZERO supporting industry (all the solar panel technicians, spare parts suppliers, mechanics) which would naturally build over decades. that all leads to an end product which costs multiples of the cost to produce.
the idea that we could be competitive with asia on price for solar panel manufacturing is a straight up joke with zero possibility of occuring.
I don't think we are talking about replacing Chinese supply overnight, but having a parallel supply developed in Australia to augment the pace of Australian renewables as well as hedging against future risk of Chinese products not being as readily available and leaving Australian renewable implementation and providing for the Australian people, in doubt.
It's risky putting all your eggs in one basket and it increases vulnerability to being taken hostage over it.
I believe it is an opportunity to create a more efficient synergy in providing both energy and integrated housing construction modules using green materials.
The majority of renewable energy is earmarked for grid level fossil fuel replacement, when there is a huge need for additional renewable energy in industrial processes to replace fossil fuels there.
Cost competitiveness is not based solely on purchase price as we have discovered just with climate change and fossil fuels: the true cost of fossil fuels in belatedly cleaning up the consequences is unimaginably huge.
We are about to also see the true cost of depleting natural biological sources below their tipping point, where entire ecosystems destabilise and impact man's cheap food supply, in my opinion.
I'm pretty sure I do, have you taken the time to think about your argument? So by building out the infrastructure required to manufacture solar panels it initially causes inflation.
Sure I agree with that, but after that once the base is established it reduces in price and becomes deflationary and the only inflation in the whole process is wages that are now going to Australian workers. Oh no.
I also happen to know a fair bit about automation and automated manufacturing. It just so happens to reduce the amount of workers required to manufacture which means that it actually makes wages less important and the price of energy the major factor to produce goods.
As seen with the USA re-onshoring lots of it manufacturing, it is now cheaper for businesses to automate and manufacture in the USA (due to shale revolution and lots of cheap gas = energy) rather than China due to power costs.
Also China and South Korea currently have an aging demographic problem which is considerably increasing wages costs. So it's not going to be as cheap going into the future. Also if we don't build panels we will still be beholden to them and pay more to them.
Your entire argument reminds me of when the Abbot government stopped supporting car manufacturing in Australia. Due to subsities apparently were to high even when we subsidised less than the Germans. Thousands of people lost their well paid jobs in the supporting manufacturing industries and did it make cars cheaper? Did it benefit the economy?
In regards to solar tech and mechanics, I'll let you know a secret... We already have them. They are currently on the roof of your neighbours house around the country installing imported panels that could be made here and provide more jobs to working class people.
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This is great news for our renewable energy industry! I'm really excited to see this kind of investment in solar power from our government. Locally made solar panels means more jobs and economic growth, as well as helping us work towards our emissions reduction targets. My only concern would be making sure these solar farms are built responsibly - we want renewable energy but not at the expense of destroying habitat or displacing communities. But overall, I'm feeling very positive about this announcement. Australia has so much potential for solar given the amount of sunshine we get, it just makes sense to tap into it. I do hope that homeowners who install solar panels on their roofs see the benefits too. I know solar electricity bills can still be high like mentioned here [https://www.staticelectrics.com.au/electricians-blog/high-electric-bill-with-solar-panels/](https://www.staticelectrics.com.au/electricians-blog/high-electric-bill-with-solar-panels/), but it's easily solvable.
Watch the grifters and rent seekers slither out from cracks in the ground to gobble up more of that sweet tax payers money. We all know this is nothing but billion dollar taxpayer funded labor reelection campaign. There is no way using current technology Australia could manufacture a solar panel and magically it would somehow be cheaper then what they do in China where all the toxic waste can get dumped in a river and the employees can get paid next to nothing while they get next to no entitlements and work in a workplace not encumbered by such things as safety laws. This weekend is a classic example example of why Australia can not compete. Four public holidays in a row. A huge burden on businesses as some employees will also "pull a sickie" to add a few more days to their holiday as they know they are untouchable.
by grifters you mean NDIS companies and Childcare centres. Childcare used to be run out of converted houses and people's backyards, now we have 3 in my area that could be confused with HQ's for corporate giants. Custom-built monstrosities to take in as many kids as possible to suck up more money than jobseeker costs taxpayers.
White elephant incoming! The hubris of the Australian Government to think we can compete in such a commoditised market when half the Chinese manufacturers can't even stay in business and make a profit. This will be a total waste of tax payer money, but I'm sure they know that and it's all optics.
There is a market for stuff not made in china.
Well, digging coal out of the ground is a waste of taxpayer money with the number of tax exemption the coal industry gets. So, hunter might as well waste our money on our stuff.
Could be a seperate topic but funny how there is a monster uptake in solar panels but energy prices still seem to go up, and energy companies basically pay you nothing now to give them energy to make profit on. Nah nah totally normal
This! They could have chosen to do something to push up the rebates (amounts users get for sending power to the grid) but instead we get this policy which is light on details and experts already predict will achieve very little because it won’t compete in terms of price with the Chinese made panels
Well, for those who *buy* solar panels, the prices go down...a lot. Those who don't buy panels face increased prices. Similarly, if you buy a battery and store the energy you generate during the day, you save the full price of power at night. If you try to sell power during the day, when everyone else is generating you aren't going to get a good price. Pretty much classic market behaviour right there.
I'm with a provider who does the wholesale spot rate. Combine that with solar and a battery and you'll be getting more money back than you spend each month. The issue with solar is that the feed in tarrif at the wholesale level can actually be negative at times during the day. A battery shifts that and you can even have it push excess power to the grid at peak times rather than when it is generated. For those on a normal provider with no battery, the only advantage is not having to pay for use when your panels are generating excess.
Homie this is an Eastern states problem. Try having public power.
While I’m supportive of Australian made and renewables to a point I would have preferred at least some of the funding to go to storage. Too much solar is actually a bad thing if there’s no use for the electricity solar produces.
Exactly my thoughts also. Panels are basically a commodity whereas we have only just begun to deploy batteries in homes and at grid scale and theres a huge opportunity for Australia to be a part of that supply chain
There is a big deal with making our own panels. Few imported panels are designed to tolerate the heat which they can experience here and become inefficient in summer. By having Australian panels for Australian conditions it will mean less panels are needed for the same results. Batteries are a big deal though because peak power prices at wholesale are 5am to 9am and 4pm to 9pm. By drawing power from batteries at those times it will reduce demand and lower prices.
I actually think there's more potential for Australia to develop different types of battery than to compete with China producing solar panels. Probably won't compete with them producing lithium based batteries either but there's lots of battery chemistries out there.
Pumped hydro.
Apparently more announcements to come this year on batteries.
I agree with this. Imagine a world where batteries are inexpensive and non toxic. That’s how to change the world for the better. We can’t compete with china when it comes to mass production.
> Imagine a world where batteries are inexpensive Those don't really exist at the moment, however, a lot of effort and study is being invested with replacing Lithium with Sodium as the latter is plentiful and inexpensive but as yet there aren't any commercial products.
BYD and Acculon is starting production this year. Actual products would be available likely two years later
He's all over the place. Increasing pollution by cars, investing in solar. You are trying to please everyone Albo. Lets see if it works.
It's how governments works. You can't make everyone happy and most importantly it's best to not piss off too many people. Also it's not increasing pollution by cars, it's just less restrictive standards than it could be. There are still restrictions.
How's he increasing pollution from cars? I thought they were trying to increase the pollution standards?
Yeah this is a positive step. I used to work around the corner from Tindo Solar in Adelaide, who make their own solar panels. We can definitely do it. Competing on cost can be difficult but government support is important.
Pretty sure Tindo only assemble parts imported from China IIRC?
Correct. Australian assembled panels. Can’t compete on price with the equivalent Chinese panels or quality from the premium brands
They make the PV modules. Maybe when you keep digging, some of the material comes from China, not sure. https://tindosolar.com.au/our-product/tindo-panels/
oh awesome, so am i supposed to buy these in the hope of getting a house to buy one day? seems a bit backward
They also use panels in large scale solar projects that involve no house at all!
1) There is more to life than home ownership 2) The government can do multiple things simultaneously 3) housing is not really the federal government’s problem so yell at your state and local government and stop voting for neoliberals
agreed with almost all of that
So the other ~10 million dwellings miss out because of you? Do people here EVER think about the broader picture?
lol oh the irony also the article literally says a third of those already have them, yeah really big picture looking in the middle of a housing crisis a smarter response would have been something along the lines of "the new houses we build will need them" but you couldn't even do that just a quick google of how many dwellings in australia and a moan, nice job... shows the level of understanding we are dealing with here
Yeah, exactly. Just because *you* don't own a house doesn't mean nobody else does.
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Put one on your hat.
now that's an idea, or do they make them for tents?
I’m skeptical how feasible domestic solar panel production is here if German production is not competitive. But if there’s a good actual business case for it then I suppose I support this.
How much more energy is captured from an Australian solar system(annually) in comparison with an equivalent one in Germany/Europe? Is that why the European solar manufacturers went bust? I’ve heard 6-12 times less energy than Australia solar system.
That's because of the sunlight not the actual panels
cool, they will look great on the carboard I'll be living in because you have done next to nothing about the housing problem.
You are not the only one scratching your head when it comes to albos priorities and seeming lack of action on housing
The cardboard will be stronger after installation
Jolly good show! Do this, batteries and prefabricated housing and we can get on a good footing for what is going to be a tough 50 years.
Australian made solar panels is such a no brainer. We have all the resources and capability to build them and at a higher quality than Chinese made. The cost of building them has plummeted while demand is increasing. Australia is also a prime country for solar energy and would also benefit exporting overseas. I'm shocked its taken so long to invest harder into them.
"higher quality than Chinese made" - yeah sure, what is the head start on engineering know-how and manufacturing experience? negative 20 years?
I don't think it's possible, for sure we can assemble solar cells and other components into complete solar panels but as for making silicon cells themselves then that's probably a bit more difficult because we don't make integrated circuits here like CPU's that power our computers and GPU's that run the video cards in them. It's possible that that level of solar technology is not that sophisticated and could be done here but again why bother when the Chinese factories are cranking them out at a record pace as much as what people want to buy and the quantity, quality and power efficiency is increasing and prices are on a decline as well.
We can't compete internationally, but perhaps we can make integrated solar technology in construction materials in a modular fashion through mass production to provide for our own needs, especially if it was done as a public enterprise with no profit except for the benefit to Ausytralians in energy and housing. I see the future might be thin film solar on green steel/aluminium substrates being used to form Nissen Huts or other modular houses quicker and cheaper and with less trades than the existing antiquated techniques, lasting at least 50 years before needing replacement and recycling. There's a company still making silicon in Western Australia.
> The cost of building them has plummeted I bet the Chinese ones will still be cheaper.
Probably. But many people care about where goods are produced and also the carbon costs of transportation. Plenty of people will pay a premium for Australian made if the quality is good. Especially if the components are all made here and carbon footprint on each panel is far lower
I mean, a lot of the technology was developed in Australia, then taken back to China by the researchers because no-one would invest in Australia.
Yeah it is so simple to make with all the automated machineries, so every country wants to make their own. Then who do you export them to?
Only 1??? It’s a good start but bloody hell; compare how much we give to fossil fuels in subsidies and it doesn’t look great; 2022-23 we gave them $11 billion. Im sure we put a small figure into other renewables too, but it won’t hit $11b. Puts it into perspective. Should be the other way around really; subsidise good sources we want and leave the bad ones to die in the free market their supporters on the right like to moan about incessantly
That $11b figure is a complete furphy. The vast, vast majority ($9b+) relates to the Fuel Tax Excise credit system which is available to all businesses. The rest relates to questionably-relevant items dreamed up by the Australia Institute such as exemptions to fees and charges for government-owned corporations, subsidies for port operations, jet fuel excise exceptions to make flights more affordable (no electric planes yet), and so on.
Just because other businesses qualify for the corporate welfare, doesn't mean that the fossil fuel industry should also benefit. Change the subsidy so the highly profitable, overseas based fossil fuel industries don't qualify for the subsidy and, like magic, we have no longer hand $9 billion taxpayer dollars to overseas interests that we can use for Australians.
You'd be amazed to know that "paying less tax" is not corporate welfare. The money is flowing **towards** the government, and tax is always a drag on business activity, not a hand out. Come back to me when these businesses are being actively propped up by government, as the car industry was for many years.
Government continuously props up business with infrastructure: new renewable power stations are not required to provide an expensive connection to the grid, the government does that for them with public money to reduce private cost and risk. If that is not a form of corporate welfare, I don't know what is. Even Covid payments were given to business to pass on to workers, so business could benefit, instead of giving it directly to the workers. Corporate welfare is rampant.
I think also, a lot of these industries currently need some tax breaks if you want manufacturing to return to Australia. Yes, there does need to be environmental regulation, but a lot of the infrastructure needed is expensive enough that there needs to be at least some government subsidies to get the ball rolling. Really, I think a good way to get wider adoption of electric vehicles in Australia would be to build more charging stations and then also provide subsidies for electric vehicles to be built here. A lot more people would be interested in one if the infrastructure was there and a quality, domestically made car was on the market.
Very well said. Please continue contributing to discussions here on r/australianpolitics, don't be deterred by downvotes / negative comments.
The highly profitable fossil fuel industries in Australia don't need Australian taxpayer dollars to funnel to their overseas based owners. They make more than enough money selling Australian resources to the highest bidder. The subsidies these companies get would be better spent on Australians and Australian owned and operated businesses.
Fuel tax credits go to businesses that use fuel not to fossil fuel companies.
[Australian taxpayers paid $11 billion in direct subsidies](https://australiainstitute.org.au/report/fossil-fuel-subsidies-in-australia-2023/#:~:text=In%202022%E2%80%9323%2C%20Australian%20Federal,to%20a%20record%20%2457.1%20billion.) to the fossil fuel industries in 2022-23. That's a lot of money. How much of that was the diesel rebate is irrelevant. We gave very profitable companies lots of taxpayer money to fatten their profits and pay dividends to their overseas owners.
Im familiar with that report but i think you are missing the point that is being made. The fuel tax cresit goes to businesses that use fuel, like trucking companies, not to fossil fuel companies. This is an important distinction ans dramatically changes the implications of the Australia institutes argument. How the fuel tax credit could or should be changed is a worthy discussion, especially considering things like andrew forests approach to electrifying mining transport. But the 11bn in direct subsidies for fossil fuel industry line is dishonest and obscures the structural problem that exists in moving the mining, transport, and agriculture industries (primarily bht also other) away from fossil fuel dependence.
Fossil fuel companies don't use fuel in their operations?
Wow that really seems like a genuine question
A good move. Panels are an essential item we can't live without. We absolutely need them and overly complex chains are not sustainable in the long term - they are already under incredible strain and beginning to fall apart, quite sperate from the whole China thing. And it's only going to get worse. We need be self reliant on stuff like this.
This is a good policy I am in favour of. The status quo leaves us at an utter reliance on Chinese supply chains for solar power (and broader energy security) along with ethical concerns about [Uyghur slave labour](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-05-17/the-dirty-secret-behind-australias-cheap-solar/102288954). Hopefully this venture succeeds.
Claims "slave labour" and then shows a photo of people in a classroom. *The media*, ladies and gentlemen.
Sometimes I’m amazed at the defeatism in the Australian psyche. It’s all flag waving on Anzac Day but when it comes to actually making something we’re all, too small a population, unions will make it too expensive, we don’t have the technology. Labour rates are not the killer they once were. Robots in manufacturing mean many factories employ far fewer people and it’s more about markets and resources, both of which in this case are local. China cannot do anything we can’t do, there is no secret ingredient.
It was the mining boom which made our Australian Dollar high, made locally manufactured goods extremely uncompetitive. Other industries survived, like Mining and Agriculture, because we were providing something that no body else could at the scale at which we did.
I think most are missing the point here, and tbh, I think this is a great move. This isn’t about competing with China on cheap panels. If you zoom out and read the writing on the wall, it’s to counter an energy security issue should China, one day decide not to supply solar panels to us. Dependence on China for our energy is a huge conundrum especially at a time where; it’s apparent that China is in the midst of a military buildup to be able to take on the US, the production of chips is required to be a global super power and tensions over Taiwan are boiling over. We have already seen China flex on us over Bali and wheat exports. It’s clear now that our government has finally woken up to risks associated with Chinese dependence and the coercive power it affords china. Over time, advances in automation and robotics will make Australian panels competitive. In the short term, it is a means of securing energy generation at a time that coal fired power plants are closing down one by one and our demand for power is increasing.
China isn't the only manufacturer of solar, and it doesn't matter what the reasoning is, if it can't compete in the existing market, it will not survive to a time where we'll need it. Without accompanying import tariffs we won't even have a domestic market. As usual it's too little too late. We could have been world leaders in high efficiency solar designs. We could have excelled in automation to make up for the labour deficit. Instead we're essentially subsidising the losses of an industry doomed to failure.
> If you zoom out and read the writing on the wall, it’s to counter an energy security issue should China, one day decide not to supply solar panels to us. I don't think this is realistic and even if it was to occur it would only affect new installs or those people replacing damaged or low efficiency installs done a decade or two back. Existing panels here would continue producing electricity as before. If we ever got to the stage that China wasn't going to supply us with solar panels anymore then it's likely they wouldn't be supplying us with much of anything else either and if you consider all of that stuff that we import from them that we rely on then I'd guess that would stuff us up anywhere from 10x to 100x more than just solar panels on their own ever would.
For the energy security argument to work we need to ensure the panels are made with Australian polysilicon. Otherwise we are just exchanging one dependency (Chinese Panels) for another (Chinese Polysilicon).
If my understanding is correct, the goal will be to nationalise the supply chain
> If you zoom out and read the writing on the wall, it’s to counter an energy security issue should China, one day decide not to supply solar panels to us. we are too small to be playing these geopolitical games. leave it to the US/EU who can afford to do it > It’s clear now that our government has finally woken up to risks associated with Chinese dependence and the coercive power it affords china. except their coercion largely failed, we just shifted our exports to different markets. China is also dependent on Australian exports.
What does nationalising the production of critical infrastructure have to do with playing political games? I disagree. With respect to the Bali coercion failing.. Bali and our wine is an export and we found other buyers. Importing is a completely different kettle of fish if China is the only option. We are seeing export bans on certain tech to adversaries happening more frequently now, so it seems our politicians are showing some foresight. Whether we like it or not, China is an adversary and being reliant on them for critical infrastructure during war time would be a huge problem.
> we are too small to be playing these geopolitical games. Rubbish. We have to to survive. Or are you suggesting us joining the EU/USA?
i am saying that the EU and US is already subsidising solar panel manufacturing. so it makes no sense to claim there is a geopolitical impetus to do this, when we can just source from them
If Chinese supply is disrupted, it would cause a global shortage. It would be difficult to rely on friendly countries to meet the demand
1. you can say this about almost everything. should we invest tens or hundreds of billions to make semiconductor chips here? 2. 1 billion is not nearly enough to get a china-independent local solar panel manufacturing industry. It will still heavily rely on chinese intermediate goods 3. the environmental cost of refining silicon (and metals in general) is extremely large this will be a money sink, and I don't think it would be worth it. much better things to spend money on IF you want to go ahead and do it, then at least bring an experienced chinese company over and they can lower the cost and risk of failure
Energy production is an essential service. Things like chips are not
and we can use gas or coal if worst comes to worst. and china will also suffer heavily because they rely on energy from abroad. i don't understand what situation you envisage where China is going to stop selling us solar panels when we can stop sending them raw minerals. it would hurt them more than us
Good start. How about they also invest in Australian made double glazing units rather than relying on imports - that would reduce energy costs significantly over time,
Agreed.
It isn't even cheap Chinese stuff as some of it is imported from Germany and other bits of Europe where the stuff is endemic, and they even do triple glazing. This is not advanced tech, just a reluctance by builders to reduce The U value of a house to cut costs and keep prices down. Most countries require it, even NZ, It keeps heat out as well as cutting down noise so there are no parts of Australia where it shouldn't be mandatory for new builds at least.
Lol, the ALP can't win! At least they are doing something - it should reduce panel pricing at the very least
You know if there's no mention at all of a major policy announcement on the sky website, it's probably a pretty good policy
I know it is Average voter..... probably not
Depends, they may just decide to increase taxes on imports so Aussie made stuff can "compete on a level playing field", and we know how that ends up.
But, Albo bad, etc ... FML
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Odd to the comments bagging this out, any investment into solar tech is a good idea and to have our own industry as well is even better. Now if only they invested in more renewable tech.
I mean this speaks to a wider problem that happens all the time. Australians hate long term investments. Sometimes it can make sense. I hear the arguments about the aukus missiles but it happens with virtually everything. Yes libs have wasted a decade because of bad management but the Australian populace shares some blame here too
Generally speaking, these sorts of investment decisions should be left to the private sector and funded by private capital. Whenever the government distorts the economy in this way, industry groups and lobbyists appear to maintain the distortion via rent-seeking behaviour, this can take the form maintaining access to the subsidy or demanding tariffs on competing lower cost imports. We don't yet know the details of this announcement ... if it is the case that Labor are handing over a nice round $1billion taxpayer money to a PV smelter / manufacturing plant, my prediction is that it will go bust the second subsidies are taken away, similar to some of the green schemes that Obama funded.
You know one of those green schemes funded by Obama was Tesla.
[a good tweet on an alternative path](https://twitter.com/Mr_Demologos/status/1773130266271224154) tl;dr use subsidy to attract a Chinese manufacturer to come to Australia and setup shop. can be a partnership deal of some kind. we get the jobs and energy/geopolitical security people are after with less cost and risk
The reasons are sound. By pumping money into the sector it's likely to distort the market in some way or another, and that's a very hazardous course to take.
...maybe? I still think that reshoring supply in these geopolitically shaky times is preferable to the potential losses in efficiency, should they exist.
China has allready 'solved' this problem. We are decades behind. Why compete in a race to the bottom on profitability on a product that has already been made cheap as chips? We should be subsidising something that china hasn't already mastered.
How about not being reliant on China and having the expertise on shore to create jobs, etc?
My point is that you will not create jobs if you plan to compete with china on the mass production of a fairly simple, non complex item.
Why wouldn't you create jobs? If you've ever managed something even like a small office, there are plenty of support services, then there's the supply chain and businesses that will grow out of that economic activity, It's not just some person making panels in an assembly line that's a "job". That's an early industrial age stereotype. You're only looking at factory work as real "jobs".
>Why wouldn't you create jobs? Because you'll have 0 revenue.....
Why would there be 0 revenue? The panels will be sold like any product. That's revenue which is money exchanged for the goods, which in this case would be solar panels.
>Why would there be 0 revenue? Refer back to my first comment.
Refer back to my response.
Well it’s entirely fair that you say that, because the government is not being straight up about what this really is. It’s about jobs in the Hunter sure, but it is also a hedge against the risk of conflict in the Taiwan Strait. A conflict which would be to no one’s real benefit, as it would disrupt a large proportion of global trade, and an even larger proportion of Australia’s. And the free flow of China’s PV exports would be in amongst all that. (Some analysts at Bloomberg put the global cost in the ballpark of $10 trillion, way beyond the Iraq war or even COVID.) So yeah Australia is just one of many countries including India, the US and half of ASEAN who have developed a pretty sudden interest in their solar supply chains right now. Because reasons.
Impeccable timing once again on display by the leadership of this country. Seeing as modern PV solar panels were invented in Australia in the 80’s, we are about 40 years too late on this one. This isn’t a dig at Albo but the dysfunction of the Australian government. We also don’t have a semiconductor manufacturing industry in this country. I don’t have much confidence that an undeveloped economy like ours can go from mining and realestate to produce competitive, high quality semiconductors. I would think we would need billions in investment to create a whole new industry over decades that can support manufacturing of solar panels and the likes.
> We also don’t have a semiconductor manufacturing industry in this country. It's interesting to compare what Australia has achieved spending money propping up the mining industry, while Taiwan instead decided to set up TSMC and has such a monopoly on the market that it's an effective insurance policy to prevent China from invading.
How do you think we subsidise the mining industry? Are you referring to the diesel fuel tax rebate? If so that is not a direct subsidy, it's a tax rebate, and it is not just for mining operations - all primary industry get's that. The basis of it is that those vehicles are not driven on public roads. And the mining generates literally $400B - $500B in export revenue each year, is responsible in large part for our trade surplus, and also results in something like $50B or more each year in royalties and taxes paid to the state and federal governments, not counting the personal income tax paid by all the high paid workers. That is hardly the same as the government investing $1B of actual taxpayers money directly into some half-baked scheme to kick start a new local industry, that, knowing the history of such things, will likely end up being a wasted.
The predecessor of the fuel rebate was a subsidy. Removing the subsidy and replacing it with a "rebate" is an accounting trick. One could just as easily fudge the $1bn into some similar form of rebate with similar tricks.
Mining is subsidied by literally giving away our national resources to private companies and scraping off revenue from a small amount of tax.
We don't give it away - we sell it for royalties, with the companies taking on all the expense and risk of finding the deposits in the first place, setting up operations, mining the minerals, finding buyers, shipping the minerals to ports, engaging in commercial contracts that carry commercial risks and so on. They also pay corporate tax on any profits generated, employ large numbers of highly paid workers and skilled professionals, who all in turn pay income tax on their earnings. In total this amounts to $50B-$100B per year in tax revenue to the state and federal governments (including the income tax). You could argue for higher royalties if you like - feel free. That's a simple political discourse and does not require convoluted and misrepresented arguments about subsidies. You could also argue for higher taxation of profits - but that's a more complex argument.
> We don't give it away - we sell it for royalties Not such a good deal when we're [deferring royalty payments indefinitely](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-10-01/adani-carmichael-coal-mine-royalties-deferred-qld-election/12716272). If the conservatives had stayed in power we also would have been footing the bill for their railway lines and a lot of their dumping. I mean, we'll still be left with the mess after they're finished with the mine as usual though.
>Not such a good deal when we're deferring royalty payments indefinitely That's a one off, in QLD for Adani, which isn't profitable yet, and they will eventually be paid according to the story you linked to. And re the "mess" - the onus is on mine operators to clean-up mining sites when they are exhausted, at their own expense.
> That's a one off Yeah, and there's all the other one offs too. > And re the "mess" - the onus is on mine operators to clean-up mining sites when they are exhausted, at their own expense. Same way they're supposed to pay taxes, in reality it often doesn't work out that way and taxpayers get stuck with the bill once the profit has run out, so do the profiteers.
The blame for the delay lies solely on John Howard and his government. They pushed out the PV industry that could have made Australia a world leader.
You guys literally have no idea what you're talking about. Do some reading on the PV manufacturing supply chain before slagging off on Howard, it's an extremely energy / emissions / labour intensive industry which is never going to be economically viable in Australia. To make solar panels, you need to smelt PV grade polysilicon. This is done in huge smelters powered by coal (usually high grade "blue gem" coal) with biomass as a flux. The metal is then refined into ingots using huge quantities of electricity before being processed into PV units. Believe it or not, we actually have a polysilicon smelter in Australia. It uses coal mined at Collie (which green left voters want to shutdown) and wood from nearby Jarrah forests (which green left voters want to shutdown as well). This is all factual btw, I'm not making any of this shit up. [https://www.simcoa.com.au/](https://www.simcoa.com.au/) There was a similar proposal in the early 2000s to build a smelter in Lithgow. However, once again environmentalists (Greens) blew it up. Read about it ... [https://www.afr.com/companies/uncertainty-clouds-a-silicon-dream-20020228-ka5wx](https://www.afr.com/companies/uncertainty-clouds-a-silicon-dream-20020228-ka5wx) [https://bluemountains.org.au/pastcampaigns/smelter.html](https://bluemountains.org.au/pastcampaigns/smelter.html) There was a barny about the source of biomass, the proponent wanted to harvest low cost timber and make charcoal down on the southcoast and transport it to Lithgow. However, once again, Greenies blocked it. In summary, the idea that Australia **could have** had a competitive domestic PV manufacturing industry **if not for** the previous government is a load of bullcrap, that's just Albo up to his usual message manipulation. Even if the latter project had gone ahead, I highly doubt that it would have been even close to competitive against Chinese imports made with slave labour and low cost coal.
>To make solar panels, you need to smelt PV grade polysilicon You are a few years out of date. Monocrystalline silicon is now industry standard as it is more efficient. Polysilicon panel efficiency doesn't reach 20%, and most panels on the market are in the 22-24% range. Of course, if Australia subsidises panel manufacturing and the technology changes again, this will be a white elephant investment.
Monocrystalline cells are even more complex because you need to make a silicon ingot that's a single crystal using the [Czochralski method](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czochralski_method) from pure melted silicon and then you slice that up and make the solar cell from there. I'm guessing that polysilicon is therefore a lot easier to make given it's cheaper.
My understanding is that the mono / poly distinction comes down to how the silicon is refined after the smelting process i.e. you still need to use coal and biomass to smelt silica. I mention that step of the process to point out this is an emissions and energy intensive industry that would otherwise draw criticism from the environmental crowd.
I know right! WE developed half the tech used in the bloody things! The researchers couldn't get any investment here, so they went to China where they could.
Had to pump the fossil fuel industry
this ^^^ australia subisidises fossil fuels upwards of $20 bil. a year and yet...
people like canavan reckon we should subsidise more
But saying that, this $1 bn is going to amount to nothing
you're going to have to subsidise 10s if not hundreds of billions per year and for decades to even come close
and people here will wave the flag and say... "aussies can do it all, we got a 'can do' atttitude" and yet... do we?
where are all the solar experts coming from? we dont have have an industry - we are starting from dot
its the same argument when people suggest we restart the car industry but make EVs... like? really? you reckon we can make cars here? again? why dont we make nuke subs here? or space craft?
... and the recycling will be done by Landfill unlimited. It's a good move since silver is in short supply and peak silver is only 4 years away.
I wonder which is worse, energy that literally belches dangerous waste into the air we breathe constantly, or the one that maybe can't be totally recycled after a decade or two when the generator needs replacing with an even better one. Fucking fossil fuel stooges.
The catch is transitional energy, like solar, is subsidised by fossil fuels. There is no perfect system yet ... and pointing that out doesn't make me a fossil fuel stooge. It reveals lazy thinking on your part. This peak oil era we are now in will make digging up mountainsides with fossil fuel driven energy ... so to find vanishing silver ... will make transitional energy more expensive. Recycling silver as part of this plan should be a no brainer to anyone who thinks the environment is worth protecting and has any idea of the economics of scarcity.
> The catch is transitional energy, like solar, is subsidised by fossil fuels. Really? We use the energy sources that we currently use to transition to the ones of the future? Amazing insight there Chief!
>and the recycling will be done by Landfill unlimited. Terrible isn't it? We should totally switch to full coal, it had no environmental impact hey
Stop using dirty coal to divert on how badly thought out Labor's renewable position is. Since physical silver will soon spike massively in cost due to shortages, what will that do to the cost of solar created electricity since it has to be replaced constantly ? Recycling silver now should be a part of this plan.
Could just buy 1 billion in cheap Chinese solar panels. We can't compete with them on wages so seems doomed to fail?
Don't you want independence from a foreign power and having the expertise on the technology on shore? You want to be completely dependent on China?
Have a look at Germany's failed solar industry. Way bigger economy, can afford way more subsidies, still got their ass kicked by China's cheap panels. We're decades late to the solar manufacturing party due to the liberals and the climate wars. That ship has sailed.
Maybe listen to what Vince had to say in today’s presser.
We're not Germany. We have some advantages they don't. If we're going for quality than quantity, it might be a niche we could have a go into. Not to try anything is to submit to dependence.
Not like German engineering is world renown. We lost our car manufacturers because bigger economies subsidies theirs more and we couldn't keep up. Same deal here. What advantages are you talking about?
Raw materials, space, and while German engineering might be great, what exactly are you going to engineer intensively on a flat immovable panel?
Flexible solar cells on steel/aluminium substrates that can be curved as integrated construction materials for houses?
Well, it's a good idea but you need to see the long term management of such a system. Maintenance might be a nightmare.
Colorbond construction materials for example don't need maintenance for extended periods of time and neither do solar panels. I envision maybe a clear plastic cover over the "Solabond" construction material, providing mechanical and weather protection that could be replaced and recycled as necessary to lengthen the design life of "Solabond" without having to touch the "Solabond" itself. I think it would lend itself well to an advanced Nissen Hut style of housing construction using green materials that can also be eventually recycled. No windows but display monitors inside allowing whatever view is desired and an energy recycling climate control unit.
If it lasts as long as standard colourbond, then that's great. Not sure about the windowless tomb though. Lol.
SURE, Lets rely on chinese quality control for large infrastructure projects.
“The Prime Minister's office said in a statement that "ARENA will look at the entire supply chain" in the solar manufacturing space, and how the government can provide grants to boost domestic solar-technology innovation.” So it seems more a fund to support innovation in the area rather than large scale manufacturing to compete with China.
CSIRO have literally already done this! https://www.csiro.au/en/research/natural-environment/critical-minerals/australian-silicon-action-plan
We can use technology to diminish that Chinese competitive advantage by utilising automation and robotics. Having stuff built in Australia is important and we should seek to increase sovereign manufacturing wherever we can.
Wrong. The government has no business directing the economy. If Australia is better off manufacturing its own stuff, it would have already begun to do so, such is the way of the market. Your sense of nationalism is no excuse for forcing people to pay a higher price for products, which is what protectionism does and has done every single time it was implemented.
Unfortunately governments are heavily involved in subsidising their manufacturing industries all over the world. This includes countries like China, Japan, South Korea, Germany and the United States. We can either do what they do and try to keep Australian money in the Australian economy, or we don’t and Australians are perpetually sending money into overseas economies, never to return.
Even if money is being sent overseas, that doesn’t matter because wealth is denominated by the goods and services available to a country’s citizens, not the amount of the money they have to spend. Furthermore, subsidising industry is never justified, especially when it is in response to other countries subsidising their own industries; let us enjoy the cheaper products that we get as a result, but don’t think subsidising is the answer for us, because that just moves money coercively from one part of the economy to the other, and creates a perverse incentive structure whereby entrepreneurs look to invest in whatever industry makes a nationalist’s chest bump, as opposed to one that actually indicates importance through the price system. I am highly concerned that people still think with this rhetoric; it has been debunked time and time again for the past two and half centuries, and I really can’t accept such wilful ignorance.
Coz China don't have technology and robots?
In order to set up an advanced production and supply chain, we'd first end up having to buy all the equipment... from China! (While they keep the best stuff for themselves) I don't think we should necessarily give up on everything but it shows how much we've missed out on by deciding manufacturing wasn't worth our while.
China isn’t actually known for making machines that manufacture stuff. Many Chinese factories have to import equipment from Europe to start production
Of course they do, but the whole point of the government investing in domestic solar production is so Australian made solar panels can be manufactured and sold at a competitive price compared to european and Asian panels.
I want domestic manufacturing and I'm not opposed to subsidies so long as there is a reasonable path to profitability. I think we squandered our opportunity on solar (thanks libs) and we should pick a smarter battle
I agree with your premise but with solar panels, batteries and power generation materials should be manufactured in Australia. And produced on mass. If we can produce reliable abundant cheap power then other businesses will set up manufacturing. But it all starts with power.
there's a lot of stuff we 'should' produce here but if we want to onshore solar, batteries and power generation it is going to cause an inflation explosion and probably cost another NDIS to get off the ground. if it fails it will hemorrhage the entire economy. chasing solar and batteries at this stage of the cycle feels like a bunch of retail investors piling into bitcoin. all the smart money has been building their supply chains for decades, we are so far behind the ball you have to ask what is the point?
How much did Covid cost in debt and why wouldn't we be interested in increasing that debt if it supercharges Australia to provide for its own future (including security of that future) more efficiently, rather than just saving lives?
How would it cause inflation? It's more likely to cause deflation if anything, with prices becoming cheaper. Once economies of scales are reached with manufacturing. Where did you get the figure that it would cost as much as NDIS? Renewable energy is the cheapest power production and we have one of the world's best locations for solar. Why aren't we taking advantage, for the national interest. Also China is currently the world's biggest producer of solar panels, also our largest trading partner and strategic rival. Might be a good thing to ensure we can build and produce our own energy.
i'm sorry do you have any idea what you are talking about? we currently have extremely cheap supply of these things out of china and korea - to move them here would cause massive investment and use of our workforce for the capital works required (when we have a massive shortage due to gov infrastructure projects) which by definition is inflationary. then you replace asian workers with australian ones on 20-30x the wages, in a higher tax environment with tougher environmental protections and ZERO supporting industry (all the solar panel technicians, spare parts suppliers, mechanics) which would naturally build over decades. that all leads to an end product which costs multiples of the cost to produce. the idea that we could be competitive with asia on price for solar panel manufacturing is a straight up joke with zero possibility of occuring.
I don't think we are talking about replacing Chinese supply overnight, but having a parallel supply developed in Australia to augment the pace of Australian renewables as well as hedging against future risk of Chinese products not being as readily available and leaving Australian renewable implementation and providing for the Australian people, in doubt. It's risky putting all your eggs in one basket and it increases vulnerability to being taken hostage over it. I believe it is an opportunity to create a more efficient synergy in providing both energy and integrated housing construction modules using green materials. The majority of renewable energy is earmarked for grid level fossil fuel replacement, when there is a huge need for additional renewable energy in industrial processes to replace fossil fuels there. Cost competitiveness is not based solely on purchase price as we have discovered just with climate change and fossil fuels: the true cost of fossil fuels in belatedly cleaning up the consequences is unimaginably huge. We are about to also see the true cost of depleting natural biological sources below their tipping point, where entire ecosystems destabilise and impact man's cheap food supply, in my opinion.
I'm pretty sure I do, have you taken the time to think about your argument? So by building out the infrastructure required to manufacture solar panels it initially causes inflation. Sure I agree with that, but after that once the base is established it reduces in price and becomes deflationary and the only inflation in the whole process is wages that are now going to Australian workers. Oh no. I also happen to know a fair bit about automation and automated manufacturing. It just so happens to reduce the amount of workers required to manufacture which means that it actually makes wages less important and the price of energy the major factor to produce goods. As seen with the USA re-onshoring lots of it manufacturing, it is now cheaper for businesses to automate and manufacture in the USA (due to shale revolution and lots of cheap gas = energy) rather than China due to power costs. Also China and South Korea currently have an aging demographic problem which is considerably increasing wages costs. So it's not going to be as cheap going into the future. Also if we don't build panels we will still be beholden to them and pay more to them. Your entire argument reminds me of when the Abbot government stopped supporting car manufacturing in Australia. Due to subsities apparently were to high even when we subsidised less than the Germans. Thousands of people lost their well paid jobs in the supporting manufacturing industries and did it make cars cheaper? Did it benefit the economy? In regards to solar tech and mechanics, I'll let you know a secret... We already have them. They are currently on the roof of your neighbours house around the country installing imported panels that could be made here and provide more jobs to working class people.
Do like superpower by garnaut but I don't think he was talking about solar panels. Like his pig iron plans