After nearly being indefinitely closed down, Sydney’s Olympic Park plant has re-opened with an estimated 10,000 rooftop solar panel systems ready to be produced per year. The Sydney Morning Herald reports that 100 people will be newly employed with the plant by the end of the year.
SilexSolar bought the plant from BP solar last year when BP looked to China for solar panels. Chief executive of Silex Systems, Michael Goldsworthy, noted, “Looking down the barrel of climate change and global warming, we need to develop alternative electricity sources. We are looking at producing about 15MW of panels per year but we can expand that to 50MW.”
Rooftop panel orders have increased in Australia since 2006 when the country debuted the national solar rebate program, which was supplemented by state subsidies and the solar tariff introduced by NSW.
