Swinburne University of Technology and Suntech Power Holdings Co. Ltd. have inaugurated the Victoria-Suntech Advanced Solar Facility (VSASF) in Melbourne, Australia.
The facility, a collaborative venture between Suntech and Swinburne, was partially funded by a grant under the Victorian Science Agenda Investment Fund. The collaboration will provide a platform for the partners to commercialize NANOPLAS, a nanoplasmonic solar cell technology being developed at Swinburne.Â
Heading up the VSASF will be Professor Min Gu, director of the Swinburne Centre for Micro-Photonics, and Dr. Zhengrong Shi, Suntech's chairman and CEO as well as a fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering.
‘This new NANOPLAS technology will allow for the efficient collection of solar energy from a wider color spectrum than cells currently being developed in other laboratories,’ says Gu. ‘This could make them twice as efficient as the current generation of cells, which would also make them significantly less costly to produce and, therefore, to use.’
Cooperation between Suntech and Swinburne began in April 2009, when the two parties announced their partnership for the development of nanoplasmonic solar technology.
SOURCE: Suntech Power Holdings Co. Ltd.
