ARENA commits AU$95.4 million to extend Australian Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics to 2033

The funding builds on more than a decade of collaboration between Australia’s solar researchers and industry partners, with ACAP credited with a series of globally recognised advances in solar technology, including improvements in cell efficiency, durability, and cost, as well as the development of next-generation tandem solar cells.

Australia’s minister for climate change and energy, Chris Bowen, said the funding was intended to maintain Australia’s position in the next phase of solar innovation.

“Australia helped lead the world in solar and we want to keep leading the world in the next wave of solar innovation,” Bowen said.

“This funding backs our best researchers and helps turn Australian ideas into real-world technologies that can strengthen our clean energy system and create economic opportunity.”

ARENA CEO Darren Miller linked the funding directly to the agency’s cost reduction targets for the sector.

“Australia has some of the best solar researchers in the world and ACAP has been instrumental in turning that expertise into globally recognised breakthroughs,” Miller said.

“If Australia is to achieve ultra low-cost solar, we need to keep pushing the limits of cell efficiency. ACAP’s work is doing exactly that, helping deliver high-performance solar cell and module technologies that will reduce costs at scale.”

A long-running programme tied to a national cost target

ACAP’s funding history reflects a sustained, multi-decade public investment in solar research infrastructure.

The centre was first established with ARENA support in 2012, and prior funding extensions in 2022 carried its operations to 2030 with a AU$45 million commitment.

The latest AU$95.4 million round extends that horizon by three years to 2033, reflecting continued government confidence in the consortium model as the basis for Australia’s solar R&D effort.

The research underway at ACAP is oriented around ARENA’s “30-30-30” vision: 30% solar module efficiency at an installed cost of 30 cents per watt by 2030, translating to a levelised cost of electricity below AU$20 per megawatt hour.

ACAP’s research has more recently extended into tandem perovskite-silicon cells, with the centre’s Sydney University node achieving a certified 30% efficiency for a monolithic tandem cell in 2024, one of only a handful of research groups worldwide to reach that benchmark at the time.

The ACAP extension follows a separate AU$60 million funding round ARENA announced in July 2025, specifically for ultra-low-cost solar research and development, split evenly between a stream focused on cells and modules and a second stream targeting balance-of-systems, operations, and maintenance innovation.

That programme is structured as a competitive grant round open to universities, start-ups and businesses across the supply chain, distinguishing it from ACAP’s standing consortium model, which functions as a continuous, multi-year research infrastructure rather than a discrete funding round.

The push to drive down solar costs is underpinned by analysis suggesting the scale of the opportunity at stake extends well beyond the electricity sector.

ACAP modelling published in early 2026 found that ultra-low-cost solar could support a 2,000GW-scale domestic PV market, delivering 1,000TWh annually for domestic use and a further 2,600TWh per year for export through green metals, industrial products and fuels such as ammonia.

The modelling, led by the Australian National University’s professor Kylie Catchpole and professor Andrew Blakers with contributions from UNSW researchers, was described as the first integrated modelling exercise to quantify the full industrial and export opportunity that cheaper solar could unlock at a national scale.