Tindo’s recent $34.5 million Solar Sunshot boost will lay the groundwork for a sustainable Australian solar supply chain.
Australian solar panel manufacturer Tindo recently received a $34.5 million commitment from the government’s Solar Sunshot program to increase the output of solar panels from our Adelaide factory. While the announcement marked the end of a year-long process between Tindo and the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA), we believe it’s the start of something new that Australian industry can really get behind.
At its basic level, the monetary injection will allow us to increase production from 20MW per year to 180MW. To do this we will expand production at our Mawson Lakes factory, install new equipment and processes, and employ 50 extra people. Expanding production means our cost of goods will reduce appreciably and our increased volumes will give us the ability to supply utility-scale projects and pursue export contracts.
Along with a capital grant to upsize the factory, most of the ARENA Solar Sunshot grant comes in the form of a Manufacturing Production Credit (MPC), which partially closes the price gap between low-cost imports and domestically made solar panels. We sought this form of grant because the biggest hurdle to Australia having a sustainable renewables industry is the importation of low-cost solar panels, produced with foreign government assistance.
With an MPC, we no longer have to exclusively sell in the ‘premium’ market; we can use the MPC to rationalise our pricing and extend to the ‘high middle’ segment, without sacrificing quality. Shifting our pricing slightly, means an expansion of around four times our current addressable market, and it allows us to grow and deliver Australian-made solar panels to more homes and businesses.
Perhaps the most exciting element of the Sunshot package is the funding we have secured to run a feasibility study on our Gigafactory concept. The Gigafactory will produce 1000MW of panels per year – 50-times our current output – and employ more than 230 people.
Solar Sunshot doesn’t just seek to expand domestic solar PV manufacturing; it envisions panel manufacturing being at the heart of a sustainable Australian solar PV supply chain that produces the components that go into solar panels and a range of other equipment in the renewable rollout. Our expansion will push more Australian-made panels into the energy transition, but our increased volumes also create a ‘pull’ factor for associated industries, suppliers and researchers.
Because Solar Sunshot is public money, it’s fair to ask about the viability of the plan, and typically there are two questions: does Australia have the capacity to create a solar PV supply chain? And, can this supply chain be sustainable into the future, given the flood of low-cost imports?
On the first point, Tindo has already shown, since our first panels were produced in 2011, that there is a segment of the solar panel market that wants high quality, high performance and durability, and that we can make these panels in Australia.
Independent proof of this came from the CHOICE group, which conducted a solar panel review in late 2024, comparing 15 rooftop panels available domestically. Our 410W monocrystalline PERC ‘Karra’ panel not only achieved an overall 92 per cent ‘CHOICE Expert Rating’ in front of the 80 per cent scored by the second-placed panel, but the Tindo panel delivered 417W while the other reviewed solar panels produced less than the manufacturer’s claimed output.
Supporting the quest for quality is our ongoing investment in a design and engineering function at our Mawson Lakes factory. This means our panels are always at the cutting edge of global PV technology, and they perform in the upper echelons of efficiency. We use a zero-defect manufacturing process, we offer a 25-year warranty, and our panels are cyclone-rated, making them preferred in Northern Australia and the Asia-Pacific. This is one of the reasons behind our recent $8.5 million export deal to Vietnam.
By maintaining strong reinvestment in R&D, we run at a technology level that allows us to interact with the latest innovation coming through from China, Japan, the US and Europe. Underpinning our research and engineering effort is the network of science and engineering research partners that we have fostered. Collaboration partners include UNSW, ANU, Monash, CSIRO, University of Melbourne, University of Queensland, University of South Australia, Flinders University, University of Adelaide and TAFE SA. These relationships cover research partnerships, project partnerships, the ‘practical’ elements of engineering students’ course work, and the workshop facilities for research projects such as teams working on cars in the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge.
Some of the projects we collaborate with are close to commercial realisation and will create future industries and jobs for Australia. They include AgriPV panels, carbon electrodes in perovskite solar cells, Building Integrated Photovoltaic (frameless panels), perovskites, infrared glass film, dual-layer modules, and advanced materials research, which will prolong the life of components in a solar module.
The second question – is this a sustainable industry that Australia could and should encourage?
This question should start with the myth of ‘comparative advantage’, which is the idea that a country or a region makes the thing it can make at the best quality and lowest price, and then other regions produce at their optimum quality-price formula. Which means Australia is supposed to produce iron ore, gas and coal, and China can make solar panels. Like most popular theories, this one is misapplied: solar panels are not one market. There is a spectrum of quality and price, just as there’s a spectrum of motor vehicles – some people will happily pay more for a Toyota work ute because of its reliability. In Australia there is a strong premium and high-middle market where consumers will pay more for quality and performance, and these segments are not dominated by low-cost imported panels. Remember, we are profitable at around 1 per cent of the market – our expansion at Mawson Lakes will take us to around 5 per cent of Australian panel sales, meaning we are not competing in the mass market.
As for medium- and long-term sustainability, we believe that once we are producing at 150MW per annum and more, we’ll have enough volume to lower our cost of goods and achieve a stable high-middle pricing without government assistance. The modelling we have done, and which has been vetted by ARENA and a third-party due diligence firm, is for a funding term of seven years, with the MPC reducing to $0.00 in Year 8.
Then there’s a question of what happens when imported panels reduce even further in price? The answer is that we are in the same global supply chains as the major players, and when the cost-base reduces, it reduces for us too. In fact, as we onboard more domestic suppliers to our production system, we might pay slightly more for the components, but we also remove a lot of logistics costs.
This final consideration is the real foundation of a sustainable domestic solar PV supply chain. We need to get Australian suppliers into our production system, and we have already signed agreements with Capral to supply aluminium frames, and we have MOUs with Markerry for bus wiring, 5B for ground-mounts, and Quinbrook for solar cells. We are in ongoing talks with potential partners who make battery storage and inverters. All of them are Australian companies who are enthused about the potential to make a product that Australia will be relying on for its energy, for decades to come.
We also have some harder-to-see arguments for this project. We believe that removing emissions from our energy system with solar panels will only be achieved if the module offsets its own embedded carbon. It takes around seven years for the carbon used in a solar panel’s manufacture, transport and installation to be offset by the clean energy it produces. So, deploying Australian-made panels that last for 25 years is not only a good financial return on capital, but also a good environmental return. It’s also a creator of jobs up and down the supply chain.
Australia expects to have around 130GW of solar power operating in the National Energy Market in 2050 (utility and rooftop), almost half of the generation capacity. Energy is a strategic part of the national economy, and we need to build an industrial base that can supply, maintain and replace this future energy system with the most durable and high-performing panels; and those panels should be made to perform and endure in the unique Australian climate.
We’ve responded to a policy challenge put forward by the federal government, and the government has shown its faith in Tindo. We look forward to doing our part to develop an Australian solar PV supply chain, and while we’re at it, helping to boost the fortunes of Australian manufacturing.
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