Australia’s rising solar power ‘revolution’

Australian researchers broke the world's solar power efficiency record last month with their design of a novel commercial energy system, raising hopes the fossil-fuel dominated country may someday switch off its reliance on coal.

A team at the University of New South Wales led by professor Martin Green worked with a local company to create a highly efficient solar energy system that uses mirrors to concentrate sunlight onto a central solar panel to generate electricity.

This kind of innovation has become the hallmark of the solar energy industry, and it is only going to grow, according to Green.

"What's happening now is that photovoltaics has improved so much recently that it is better at producing electricity than using hot steam," he said. "Solar will become the cheapest way to generate electricity at any scale. The transition is going to occur where it becomes cheaper to use solar than coal."
Read article