Shen Lab received 1.36M grant from ARENA in renewable energy R&D

UNSW continues to lead in solar PV research. Photo: UNSW Archives.

UNSW Sydney researchers have been awarded a share of $15.14 million from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) Research and Development (R&D) Program to help address solar photovoltaic (PV) panel efficiency, overall cost reductions and end-of-life issues.

The researchers from UNSW Engineering will receive more than $7 million for six projects in the areas of advanced silicon, tandem silicon and end of life. This is the first time ARENA has sought applications addressing solutions to end-of-life solar PV issues.

A key part of the funding round was finding a solution to the end-of-life of solar panels and we’re excited to see some interesting new research into this,” said ARENA CEO Darren Miller. “It’s an important part in our transition to renewable energy as we need to ensure that materials used in solar panels can be recycled or remanufactured in solar panels or in other high value applications.

UNSW Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Research, Professor Nicholas Fisk congratulated the UNSW researchers on their strong result, securing more ARENA R&D grants than any other university in Australia.

Our talented researchers continue to lead in this area,” Professor Fisk said. “As global demand for renewable energy ramps up, the efforts of UNSW engineers will have a major impact on the nation’s R&D capability over the whole lifecycle of solar PV.

ARC Future Fellow Associate Professor Yansong Shen, School of Chemical Engineering, is the lead CI on the ‘A highly efficient, low-cost and eco-friendly recycling technology for silicon photovoltaics’ project which has received a $1,360,000 R&D grant from ARENA. In this project, inspired by metallurgy engineering, the team aims to develop a demonstrable and highly efficient low-cost and sustainable recycling technology for End-of-Life photovoltaic solar panels with respect to the entire supply chain.

This news is originally from: https://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/science-tech/unsw-awarded-more-7m-rene...

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