The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) launched its global AUS$100 million (US$66 million) ‘Solar ScaleUp Challenge’ today (19 June), to stimulate innovation and collaboration in the solar sector.
The initiative invites professionals from across the international solar landscape, such as financiers, solar customers, engineers, and developers, to break down barriers to installing, operating, and maintaining solar PV projects.
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This will also enable ARENA to work towards the vision of its Ultra Low-Cost Solar (ULCS), which argues that a ‘30-30-30’ approach to solar, representing 30% solar module efficiency and an installed cost of 30 cents per watt by 2030, could help Australia become a renewable energy superpower. This would mean achieving a levelised cost of electricity below AUS$20 per megawatt hour by 2030.
Ultra-low-cost solar will be needed to significantly reduce the cost of renewable electricity for heavy industrial processes, including enabling the production of green hydrogen below AU$2 per kilogram – a technology that could form a core pillar of the global energy transition.
ARENA CEO Darren Miller said the large-scale deployment of solar is “key to the clean energy transition and in achieving global decarbonisation”.
“Ultra-low-cost solar is critical for reducing electricity costs and decarbonising hard-to-abate sectors such as industry and transport,” Miller said.
“It is also a key factor in Australia becoming a renewable energy superpower, a vision which would see Australia playing a major role in supplying our key trading partners with low-emissions products such as green iron and hydrogen.”
ARENA continues to administer the AUS$1 billion ‘Solar Sunshot Program’
In March 2024, the Australian government launched the Solar Sunshot Program, aiming to support the Australian solar module manufacturing industry, an initiative ARENA continues to administer.
Sunshot primarily focuses on how components are made, whereas the newly launched Challenge focuses on deployment. As such, the two initiatives aim to bolster Australia’s efforts to become a hub for solar innovation and development.
ARENA stated that the Solar ScaleUp Challenge is open for eight weeks and is expected to complement the Solar Sunshot program by building a pipeline of solar PV innovation that manufacturers and project developers can adopt along the supply chain.
