Lights out for solar panel plant 200 jobs to go as manufacturer quits

Age
Wednesday 19/11/2008 Page: 10

AUSTRALIA'S only commercial scale solar panel plant will shut in March, axing about 200 jobs and sparking fears that skilled "green-collar" workers will be lost overseas. Announcing that it will close its Sydney solar photovoltaic plant, British-owned BP Solar said yesterday the cost of importing raw materials was too high.

BP Solar regional director Mark Twidell said shifting manufacturing to larger plants in China, India, Spain and the US would make household rooftop panels cheaper. The Opposition and the Australian Greens called on the Federal Government to save the factory, saying its closure was evidence that Labor was not doing enough to support the solar industry.

Opposition climate change spokesman Greg Hunt said: "If the Government was willing to spend $6 billion propping up our automotive industry, why is it not doing more to save, let alone expand, our solar industry?" Mr Twidell said extra support for the renewable energy industry would not have changed its decision. "We need to be located at places closer to our suppliers where we can operate at scale, 20 times the scale we're currently operating at, to deliver lower costs on the products to consumers," he said.

BP Solar global chief executive Reyad Fezzani said the Olympic Park location, lack of expansion potential and lease agreements combined to make the Sydney plant uncompetitive. But Greens climate change spokeswoman Christine Milne said the Government should do all it could to retain skilled workers in green industries. "The Rudd Government has consistently demonstrated its complete lack of interest in renewable energy, with its single-minded focus on coal," she said.

A spokesman for acting Innovation Minister Craig Emerson said the decision was disappointing, but based on costs. BP Solar had not asked for taxpayer-funded support, he said. Mr Hunt said the decision showed the Government's solar industry policy was in chaos, pointing to its decision to limit access to an $8000 rebate for rooftop solar panels to households earning less than $100,000 a year.

But the Government said Mr Hunt had no credibility on solar energy. Despite his campaign against the means test, applications for the rebate grew markedly since the means test was introduced in May - from about 350 a week to 750 a week. The solar industry is campaigning for the Government to replace the rebate with an incentive scheme that would pay a premium for power generated at home, eventually making solar panels profitable at a household level. Called a feed-in tariff, the subsidy was backed last week by a Senate committee, which recommended a model be developed with the states.